OUR LITTLE SISTER. (2015) BASED ON THE MANGA SERIES 'UMIMACHA DIARY' BY AKIMI YOSHIDA. DIRECTED BY HIROKAZU KOREEDA. STARRING HARUKA AYASE, MASAMI NAGASAWA, KAHA AND SUZU HIROSE. REVIEW BY SANDRA HARRIS. ©
Hmmm. This marvellous award-winning Japanese film
should probably come with a warning. Something along the lines of:
'This film should only be watched by persons equipped with breasts
and vaginas.' In other words,
it's probably the girliest chick flick ever made and any guy forced
to sit through it by his wife or girlfriend will almost certainly
demand sex in return.
And not
just regular sex,
either. Oh no. This'd be the kind of special sex
he normally only gets on his birthday. And he'd deserve it,
goddammit...! Most men are just not made to handle this level of
girliness. Even the bloke that makes it to the end of the film will
probably still need a good-sized transfusion of testosterone
afterwards to return him to his normal manly self.
The plot of
the film is simple enough. Three sisters in their twenties are all
living together in their family home in a place called Kamakura in
Japan. Their parents are long since divorced, which is how the three
girls come to be fending for themselves without a mum or dad to hold
things together. They're doing all right, but a little advice or
guidance from an older person wouldn't go astray nonetheless as their lives
are not entirely perfect.
At the
start of the film, we find out that the girls' dad has passed away.
He was on his third wife at the time of his death, the randy sod.
He's leaving behind a fourteen-year-old daughter, Suzu, by his second
wife who is seemingly now
deceased. The three sisters, the daughters of dad's first marriage,
travel to the countryside for their father's funeral and meet Suzu, who's sweet and shy.
The poor girl
is not looking forward to spending the rest of her life in the care
of her dad's third wife. She eagerly accepts the eldest sister
Sachi's offer of a home for life with her and her siblings. That's
really what the film is all about, Suzu's coming to live with the
three sisters and having a lovely time of it because everyone's so
nice and no-one really argues or fights with anyone else.
There's not
much conflict in the film, just some mild ripples that barely seem to break
the surface of the four girls' lives. Sachi, the beautiful eldest
daughter, works as a nurse and is having an affair with a married man
who feeds her full of bullshit, basically. I would have loved to have
seen this relationship played out a bit more but, sadly, it wasn't to
be.
Likewise with
the second sister, Yoshino. She makes a joke of drinking too much and
sleeping with different guys but that's not really something to joke
about, is it? I would have loved to see her getting her head and her
life together (or at least
trying to) but the film-makers, in their infinite wisdom, decided
against going down that route. The youngest sister Chika- the
youngest before Suzu came along, that is- is dating a guy who seems
something of a loser but any possible hint of conflict just trails
off.
The sisters
are all fine with the arrival of Suzu. Suzu herself worries that
they'll resent her because her mum was the woman who broke up the
girls' parents' marriage. There's no hostility or animosity towards her from that quarter, however.
Even the girls' mum, when she comes to visit, is fine with the
presence of Suzu. So, that being the case, what exactly happens for
the one hundred and twenty-eight minutes of the film...?
Basically,
there's lots and lots of footage of the girls cooking traditional
Japanese food and eating it companionably together by the permanently open garden door.
Their patch of garden is beautiful. I wish I had a garden like that.
They chat and laugh and confide in each other and paint each others'
toenails and squeal with horror when a cricket crawls in the bath
with them. They also light the traditional hana-bi or
fireworks in the back garden and exclaim with delight and glee over
them.
There's some
gorgeous scenery to be viewed and some stunning views of the sea. The scene where Sachi and her
absentee mother walk in the rain together and come to a sort of
understanding with each other is a real tearjerker, especially for
any woman who's ever had a conflict with her mother, which I'm
guessing is every woman ever. I'm including myself in that number. You see how well I
know women. And mothers...!
The film's been described as being both 'Exquisite' and
'Full of quiet joy and simple pleasures,' so
if that's your thing, you go get it asap. Enjoy, you guys. Or should I say, you gals...! xxx
AUTHOR BIOGRAPHY OF SANDRA
HARRIS.
Sandra Harris is a Dublin-based novelist, film blogger and movie reviewer. She has studied Creative Writing and Film-Making. She has published a number of e-books on the following topics: horror film reviews, multi-genre film reviews, womens' fiction, erotic fiction, erotic horror fiction and erotic poetry. Several new books are currently in the pipeline. You can browse or buy any of Sandra's books by following the link below straight to her Amazon Author Page:
http://www.amazon.com/-/e/B015GDE5RO
You can contact Sandra at:
http://sandrafirstruleoffilmclubharris.wordpress.com
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