Our Little Sister (2016)

Our Little Sister (2016)

Japanese mastermind Koreeda's plotless exploration of grief

The Very Best

8.5

Movie

France, Japan
Japanese
Comedy, Drama, Family
2016
HIROKAZU KORE-EDA, HIROKAZU KOREEDA
Fukiko Hara, Haruka Ayase, Ichirō Ogura
127 min

What it's about

Upon the death of their estranged father, three sisters invite their 13-year-old half sister to live with them.

The take

Hirokazu Koreeda can do no wrong. The director of Shoplifters and Still Walking is a master of dissecting complex family dynamics through a handful of events. In Our Little Sister, three close sisters who live at their grandmother's house learn that their absent father has passed. They travel to the mountains to attend his funeral and meet their half-sister, Suzu, for the first time. Suzu is invited to live with the sisters and join their bond.

This movie is a true-to-the-form slice of life, it's almost drama-free. This absence of plot is an absence of distractions: the sisters are all that matters to Koreeda. His only focus is on how this family becomes bigger, sees past grief, and how the group of close-knit sisters that grew up together can make room for a new addition.

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