Shoplifters (2018)

Shoplifters (2018)

The Cannes-winning saga from one of Japan's most exciting directors: Hirokazu Koreeda.

The Very Best

9.1

Movie

Japan
Japanese
Crime, Drama, Family, Thriller
2018
HIROKAZU KORE-EDA, HIROKAZU KOREEDA
Aju Makita, Akira Emoto, Chizuru Ikewaki
120 min

What it's about

After one of their shoplifting sessions, Osamu and his son come across a little girl in the freezing cold. At first reluctant to shelter the girl, Osamu’s wife agrees to take care of her after learning of the hardships she faces. Although the family is poor, barely making enough money to survive through petty crime, they seem to live happily together until an unforeseen incident reveals hidden secrets, testing the bonds that unite them.

The take

The title of this 2018 Palme D'or winner is not to be taken metaphorically: Shoplifters is about a marginalized family of day workers, crooks, and small-time outlaws, who live on the fringes of Japanese society. Osamu (Lily Franky) and Nobuyo (Sakura Andô) both have jobs but spruce up their low-wage income by committing petty crimes. One day in winter, Osamu takes in a bruised girl he finds outside in the cold and introduces her to the family in his ramshackle house. But when the second-youngest member of the family, Shota (Kairi Jyo), finds himself teaching her how to shoplift, he faces a moral dilemma that threatens to unravel the family's fabric. If you were hitherto unfamiliar with the unique storytelling and social realism of Hirokazu Koreeda, we really recommend checking it out—as well as his other movies, namely, Still Walking, Like Father, Like Son, I Wish, and After the Storm. His 2018 outing features the last ever performance of Kirin Kiki, who plays the elderly matriarch and passed away that same year. Like many of Koreeda's works, Shoplifters is an understated, beautiful, and mysterious study of the effects of poverty and trauma and a delicate portrait of a family in Japan's urban underbelly.

Comments

This was an incredibly beautiful film. Having now seen Parasite, I think this lends itself well to enjoying this movie.

This film had me captivated the entire time! A beautiful movie. As one with no family, I found myself wishing for theirs!

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