Rent After the Storm (2016)

Excellent Performances - After the Storm review by AP

Watch this movie if only for what I thought were outstanding performances by Hiroshi Abe and Kiki Kirin, playing son and mother.

Abe's role is that of a writer, Ryota Shinoda, with a single, but successful, novel behind him, but with two problems: one is his gambling addiction and the other is the one he can't recognize - he is still childlike in his need for love and affection and being looked after, in his tendency to take risks, and in his failure to understand what personal responsibility means. This childishness dominates Abe's presentation with its sideways doe-eyed sympathy-seeking looks, its wheedling after money, the pleasure he takes in being fed, his boyishness taking a bath, his teenage gait, and Kore-Eda gives him a suitably teenage apartment as a set in which to encourage this.

Ryota has, of course, got a failed marriage behind him, and his wife, Kyoko, has both a new boyfriend (who is uncomfortably emotionally manipulative) and custody of their son, Shingo. In addition, Ryota's job as a private investigator is dull and he spices it up by not only spending his money on gambling but on a side hustle or two of his own (which of course earns him a lot more yen than his cut from his boss). In this he is assisted by his sidekick, beautifully underplayed by Sosuke Ikematsu, who is not only willing to lend him money pretty frequently but also makes sure he turns up for work and does it.

The thrust of the film's narrative is to offer Ryota's family - his wife, his son, his sister and mother - a chance of some kind of better understanding of each other. In this, Kiki Kirin is wonderful at enjoying her children as well as her freedom from her spendthrift husband who has recently died, eventually suggesting to Kyoko that perhaps she and Ryota are not really through. Besides, Shingo clearly rather likes his dad, partly because Ryota behaves pretty much like a big brother with him.

The film's title in English is clearly a metaphor in which the typhoon, which is frequently referred to and which eventually arrives, represents a moment in which the different turmoils in the Shinoda family are forced together and out of which they emerge, Kore-eda intimates, understanding each other better and with a chance of making a future together. But there is no guarantee: the narrative finishes enigmatically. I didn't immediately like this but, on reflection, it is true both to the story and to life. I think a comparison with Dickens' 'Great Expectations' is justified here: Dickens' original ending, in which Pip and Estella do not walk into the future hand in hand, but meet adventitiously ona London thoroughfare, talk briefly and separate, is much more consistent with the tone of the novel. And Kore-eda, without a Bulwer Lytton to get him to change his mind, gets his ending just right, I suggest.

I think you'll enjoy this.

Great Acting but Slow Moving - After the Storm review by CD

I expected quite a lot from this film, but was a little disappointed.  The actors and the script are very good, and there is plenty of light humour, but it ambles along rather slowly.  The typhoon does nothing to change the tempo and the film moves to a rather flat and unresolved conclusion.  On the plus side it is great to see a bit more of day to day family life in Japan.  The theme track may appeal to some as well.

Well acted family drama - After the Storm review by AS

A film for viewers with patience and some ability to accept major imperfections in the characters. But the story surprises with some good insights into the mysteries of personal relationships.