REVIEW: Like Father, Like Son (2013, Dir. Hirokazu Kore-eda)

There's a trick to doing sentimentality without wallowing in mawkishness. It is not an easy thing. There's a trick to filming children without losing their wonder of their egocentric innocence or their unencumbered dependence. Also not easy. Japanese director Hirokazu Kore-eda has carved a niche for himself excelling at both. His latest film, Like Father, Like Son (Soshite chichi ni nary) is a masterclass in emotive, character-driven story telling, which puts sentimentality and children to perfect use.

Status-minded father, Ryota Nonomiya (Masaharu Fukuyama) wants what is best for his family. When his son, Keita (Keita Ninomiya), is accepted in to a prestigious elementary school, Ryota's fatherly pressure looks to be paying off but a pre-requistite DNA test turns up shocking discovery: Keita is not biologically related to his parents. The boy turns out to be the son of Yudai Saiki (Rirî Furankî), an eccentric, laissez-faire shopkeeper, who's own boy, Ryusei (Shogen Hwang), is the real bearer of the Nonomiya bloodline. Both families now face the unenviable choice of whether to right the baby-swap mix-up they find themselves caught up in or to continue raising the sons they till now thought their own. More importantly, Ryota must come to terms with what family really means to him.

The Japanese context of Like Father, Like Son brings added interest to a familiar narrative tradition. Kore-eda knowingly infuses this family drama with old fashioned concepts of lineage and in doing so is able to nudge the focus away from the mothers, who would generally be central to the narrative given the children's age (I should add that both Machiko Ono and Yôko Maki are excellent here), and onto the aspirational manipulations of the fathers, or more precisely, of Ryota.

The naturalism of all the children's performances here is an undeniable asset but it is Fukuyama's turn as Ryota that Kore-eda's film hinges on. His stern, succeed at all costs approach to raising a child will resonate with many sons and daughters. At least it did with me. Fukuyama's ability to communicate the boundaries of Ryota's care and affection, and how those boundaries reflect on him as a father and as a human being, is endlessly impressive. He's not a likeable character, and I struggled to empathise with his plight, but he does make it believable and ultimately moving.

Kore-eda's approach is stiffly structured but he rounds off his unadorned formalism with almost imperceptible grace. Seemingly static shots actually ebb and flow with crawling pans, and zooms that lean gently into the drama. This quiet movement, barely noticeable, hint at the nourishing warmth behind Kore-eda's distance. It's a warmth that only rarely radiates off the screen, a warmth felt more in its absence. Kore-eda is wise to keep it under wraps; his film, and more importantly, his lead character, are far more compelling because he does.

Like Father, Like Son is a simple tale, simply told, but one that disarms with the unhampered honesty of its performances. Kore-eda's art is to find emotional and moral depth in his story's plainness, and to showcase it without adornment. In doing so, he touches on the universal. It remains to be seen how the film will translate. There is already word that Spielberg, who presided on the Cannes jury that awarded Kore-eda's film with the Prix du Jury, has snapped up the rights for Dreamworks.

Personally, I wouldn't suggest you wait for the remake. Odds are Spielberg is going to murder this one.

★★★★

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