True Mothers (2020)
7.0
A delicately assembled, if a bit lengthy, portrait of adoption today
Movie
Japan
Japanese
Drama
2020
FEMALE DIRECTOR, NAOMI KAWASE
Aju Makita, Arata Iura, Go Riju
140 min
TLDR
A bit too long, but it makes adoption seem more normal compared to other depictions, and that's what makes it great.
What it's about
Years after adopting her son Asato, Satoko Kurihara receives unexpected contact from Hikari Katakura, Asato’s teenage biological mother.
The take
While adoption doesn’t have the same stigma as it did back in the day, it doesn’t mean that the process is worry-free. There’s still a host of issues surrounding the process, plenty of which have been depicted in film. So, it’s no surprise that True Mothers holds more or less the same themes we’ve seen before, but where some films focus on mining the melodrama, filmmaker Naomi Kawase’s writing is much more restrained, keeping its take as naturalistic and detail-oriented as possible, and thus, demystifying the process. The slow pace may not be to everyone’s taste, but True Mothers is a thoughtful, sensitive portrayal of Japan’s adoption system today.
What stands out
Hiromi Nagasaku does a great job leading the cast, but Aju Makita steals the second half with her excellent performance.
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