Monster (2023)

Director Hirokazu Koreeda is someone I have been a big fan of for some time. That doesn’t mean that I have made time for everything he does though, sadly. As time keeps running away from me, I still have a number of his films to explore, but I have loved almost everything that I have seen from him so far. If you haven’t heard of him before, I implore you to start working through his filmography (and I will happily make a few recommendations). Having already heard some praise for Monster, I was delighted to make time for it recently when it was showing at a cinema near me, and I am very happy I did.

Showing one main story from three different perspectives, Monster is initially about a single mother (played by Sakura Andō) who is concerned about her son (Minato, played by Sōya Kurokawa). He has had an encounter with a teacher that seems to have crossed a line and left him fearful. We then see things from the perspective of the teacher (Michtoshi Hori, played by Eita Nagayama), who believes that Minato has started to seriously bully another child in his class (Yori, played by Hinata Hiragi). Last, but by no means least, we see the full situation from the perspective of Minato.

While not necessarily the most radical way to create more drama, tension, and misdirection, the structure of Monster works brilliantly by teasing out one little detail at a time, leading to the reveal of a picture that appears like one of those Magic Eye things I could never see (seriously, I was basically the guy in Mallrats every time I looked at one of those bloody pictures). The delicate screenplay is written by Yûji Sakamoto, someone I am not at all familiar with (but will be keeping an eye out for in the future), and it requires a certain amount of patience from viewers until the various questions raised start to be answered. There is also an ambiguous ending that manages to be both uplifting and heart-breaking, no matter what way you interpret it, so be prepared to keep mulling this over for some time after the end credits have rolled.

Koreeda directs with his usual skill, working once again with the kind of material he seems drawn to, stories that heap some grit and danger around a core of love and warmth. It would be wrong to consider most of his movies infused with magical realism, but he usually allows for at least a portion of any film runtime to be viewed through a filter of wide-eyed innocence that helps viewers to see the potential best in any relationship.

The adult cast members do very good work, although both Andō and Nagayama have to play out their parts while they lack essential information about the situation they find themselves in, but it is young Kurokawa and Hiragi who are the real stars, playing their parts in a way that feels both completely natural, as absolutely uncomplicated as children often seem to be, and yet also in line with how everything plays out in the third act.

This may not be up there with the very best of Koreeda, mainly because a fair bit of the third act simply underlines what viewers find out by the end of the second “story”, but it’s still a great film nonetheless. I can’t imagine anyone being unmoved by the finale, and every minute of the runtime feels authentic and well-earned.

8/10

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Mubi Monday: The Truth (2019)

After the absolute brilliance of Shoplifters, I was willing to see anything that director Hirokazu Koreeda would do next. I'm sure many others felt the same way. Not that Koreeda hasn't been delivering great movies now for decades, but Shoplifters was so good that it just put him right back in my mind as a bit of a master of cinema. And I'm sure others feel the same way.

Anyway, The Truth is Koreeda's English-language debut. And it's mostly in French. Catherine Deneuve plays a famous actress, Fabienne Dangeville, who is being visited by her daughter (Lumir, played by Juliette Binoche), her son-in-law (Hank, played by Ethan Hawke), and their child (Charlotte, played by Clémentine Grenier). The timing coincides with the release of Fabienne's autobiography and her latest role that has her playing . . . a mother. And the truth is ripe for exploration at this time, especially as Lumir calls into question so many things in the alleged autobiography that didn't actually happen the way they are described.

I think it's fair to say that The Truth may well disappoint a lot of people after Shoplifters. It's nowhere near as good as that film, and it doesn't seem to make any of the main points as effectively and beautifully as we're used to seeing these things done by Koreeda, who once again takes on both the directing and writing duties (although Ken Liu is credited for a short story used as the basis for the film that Fabiene is working on).

The weakness of the material, however, is at least partly compensated for by the quality of the leads. Deneuve is a grand dame of cinema, of course, and I can't think of any role she's had that I've disliked. This gives her some great moments, showing a woman so invested in her acting career that she will move from a moment of honest emotion to figuring out how best to use those feelings in a specific scene in her movie. Binoche is a perfect "opponent", staying strong enough to wrestle things back to the truth that the title of the movie promises. Hawke is very good in his role, although his character feels quite unnecessary for most of the runtime, and Grenier is just fine as the beloved child of the group. Manon Clavel does well in a supporting role, and Roger Van Hool helps to mix things up a bit when he appears onscreen.

What you end up with, ultimately, is a character study that steadily turns into a mood piece. But the mood never really feels like one worth giving so much time to. The core of the film is a standard family confrontation, and the dressing around it all never seems vital. It all infuses the core, undeniably, but a few tweaks could have left a lot of things the same without the extra layering that doesn't add enough to make it all worthwhile.

It's a very enjoyable film, full of moments that will impress fans of the main cast. It's just not a great film. And, perhaps a bigger contributing factor to my opinion on it, it's just not close enough to being as good as Shoplifters.

7/10

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Shoplifters (2018)

Blood is thicker than water. You can choose your friends but can't choose your family. Whatever happens, your mother is always your mother. These are some common phrases that many people tend to use as 100% true statements. I don't think they're true. At all. And, considering the content of Shoplifters, I don't think writer-director Hirokazu Koreeda does either.

Shoplifter revolves around a family unit that has, at its core, a father (Osamu, played by Lily Franky), a mother (Nobuyo, played by Sakura Ando), and one son (Shota, played by Kairi Jō). There's also a grandmother and one other, younger, woman in the house. They have their moments, but they're not the beating heart of the tale. Osamu and Shota are the shoplifters, perfecting their craft daily and making a decent score from each trip to the shops. When they find a very young girl named Yuri (Miyu Sasaki) they eventually decide to let her stay with them. It seems that Yuri has been stuck in an unhappy situation for most of her brief childhood, so her new life is an improvement, even if she ends up being introduced to the shoplifting life.

That's one main aspect of Shoplifters, the fact that a family made up of bad people can still be a good thing for the ones they love and care for. The main adults that we are watching have some major flaws, but those flaws don't seem to matter so much when they're also shown to be offering something that was missing from the lives of the young ones in their lives. The other main aspect of the movie is that family doesn't have to be made up of the people assigned to you at birth. You CAN pick who becomes your family. There are two quotes that stand out here, although I will have to paraphrase. One is about how the bonds you choose are stronger than the bonds simply forced upon you. The other is when a character states that giving birth to a child doesn't automatically make you a mother. It's often the case that we hear about men not being fathers just because they helped to conceive the child, but the same is equally true of mothers (although they go through much more on the journey from conception to birth, of course).

The acting from all involved here is superb, so I will just single out both Kairi Jō and Miyu Sasaki, who give two of the best child performances I have seen in recent years. The former is at an age where he is starting to ask a few more questions and consider acts of rebellion, the latter is young and innocent without being overly delicate or precocious. As an ensemble piece, this is pretty much flawless when it comes to the acting.

It helps that Koreeda has crafted such a wonderful tale, one that unfolds with a few twists and turns that allow you to question your own views without ever feeling as if the rug was pulled out from under your feet. The film is full of a precariously balanced state of peace and contentment that you suspect may not last, and indeed feel cannot last for these characters, yet you want it to. You want it to last forever.

There's a scene in the final act of Shoplifters that has the main characters all enjoying a day at the beach. It's a sweet, uplifting scene. If Koreeda has worked his magic on you, as he did on me, then you want the film to just end there. That's a family having a pretty perfect family day out. But that's not where the story ends. What family story does?

9/10

Shoplifters can be picked up here, eventually.