Our Little Sister
Sony Pictures Classics
Reviewed by: Tami Smith, Guest Reviewer for Shockya
Grade: B
Director: Hirokazu Koreeda
Written by: Hirokazu Koreeda from Akimi Yoshida’s Umimachi Diary
Cast: Haruka Ayase, Masami Nagasawa, Kaho, Suzu Hirose, Ryo Kase, Kirin Kiki, Lily Franky, Jun Fubuki, Shinichi Tsutsumi and Shinobu Otake,
Opens: July 8th, 2016
Our Little Sister is a Japanese drama that opens and closes with a funeral, dealing with a family of three sisters living at a family home in a small Japanese town. The oldest sister Sachi (Haruka Ayase) is a nurse at a hospital’s Critical Care unit. She feels responsible for her siblings and runs the household. The middle sister Yoshino (Masami Nagasawa) is a bank executive, bored with her job, and the youngest Chika (Kaho) works at a sporting goods store and behaves most unpredictably. Their life is interrupted after receiving a phone call notifying them about their estranged father’s death. During the funeral ceremonies they meet their half-sister, a fifteen-year old Suzu (Suzu Hirose) and invite her to live with them.
What follows is a sedate and slow moving plot that takes place during a year’s time at a pretty seaside town. We are exposed to excessive Japanese customs of curtesy, politeness, muted emotions and lots of bowing. Right below the surface of this Seaside Town Diary, based on Akimi Yoshida’s Umimachi Diary, lies a story of broken families where men leave their wives and children, establishing secondary living units with younger women. The oldest sister follows her father’s footsteps and develops romantic interest with a married male doctor from her workplace.
Director Hirokazu Koreeda takes his time, moving the plot at an overlong one-hundred and twenty-eight minutes, where ninety five will suffice. Director of photography Takimoto Mikiya does a fantastic job filming in Fuji, Kamakura, a seaside city south of Tokyo; and Shizuoka prefecture on central Honshu’s Pacific coast, near Mt. Fuji.
Our Little Sister may find audiences among the indie crowd willing to put up with a slow moving plot, which ends where it started.
Unrated. 128 minutes. © Tami Smith, Guest Reviewer
Story: B-
Acting: B+
Technical: B
Overall: B