Review: Love Life

Director:  Kōji Fukada

Stars:  Fumino Kimura, Atom Sunada, Kento Nagayama

Taking a break from the detached revenge sagas that have piqued his interest of late, Kōji Fukada maintains a knack for staging human tragedy with his latest movie, the obliquely titled Love Life, which sprawls out from the sudden death of a six-year-old boy in ways both touching and, occasionally, baffling.

Said child is Keita (Tetta Shimada), a whip-smart Othello player who’s championship win of the counter-based board game is the cause of celebration at the opening of the film. Familial tensions abound, however. Keita is the son of Taeko (Fumino Kimura), from her first marriage that ended in divorce. Now married to Jiro Osawa (Kento Nagayama), Taeko has evidently failed to impress her new husband’s parents (Misuzu Kanno, Tomorowo Taguchi), who make their disappointments clear just prior to Keita’s fateful accident in the family bathtub.

The first third of the movie feels close to business-as-usual for Fukada as he catalogues the icy fallout of this terrible incident, particularly the sense of dislocation felt by the family in the immediate aftermath. It is sad, made all the sadder by Fukada’s often lingering, pragmatic approach.

By turns things start spinning out of his comfort zone, however. Keita’s long-absent Korean father Park (Atom Sunada) re-emerges to cause a scene at the boy’s funeral, and it becomes clear that he is both deaf and homeless. Compounded by guilt over her son’s death, Taeko’s position in the local social services as the only fluent signer compels her to take his case. Jiro is understandably reticent about their reconnection given the shared commonality of their grieving yet, as he notes himself, he’d rather she see him with his blessing than behind his back.

Fukada remains steely in his gaze upon this tightly controlled drama, although there are the occasionally rough-hewn moments that suggest the disruptions to come. Taeko’s march from her office – where she works with Jiro – over to the benefits office across the road where Park is waiting is captured in jagged handheld; a sharp contrast to the rigid poise of much of the rest of the picture.

The third act makes moves more dizzying and unexpected than this technical aberration. The end section sees a number of questionable swerves occur as coincidence, contrivance and tonal shifts unmoor the film from its assumed course. A subplot in which Jiro dallies with infidelity himself is under-developed and unfinished, and a good reason for its inclusion is hard to come by.

More egregious is the way in which the narrative deals with the ‘problem’ of Park. Love Life shifts gears for a farcical road trip, the conclusion of which is supposed to feel richly cathartic for Taeko, but instead mostly reads as plain bizarre. After this there’s only a modestly hopeful coda before Fukada brings things to a close with a lengthy pan across the courtyard of the family home, two figures disappearing slowly into the distance, taking our incredulity with them. After the assurance of his last couple pictures, the way Love Life meanders off the rails is a little bit dumbfounding.

Still, there are certainly reasons to seek the movie out, not least the deft performance given by Kimura, who navigates the varied terrain asked of her by the material. Her most memorable rival is Misuzo Kanno as Jiro’s mother, Akie. A hushed balcony confessional between the two of them is captured in nakedly personal close-up. It’s a small scene in the centre of the picture that is among its most special.

The prevailing sense remains that the machinations at the tail end undermine much of the more interesting observational episodes early on, making this a lesser work. Still, if the intention is to confound the viewer and by extension encourage the same sense of dislocation from reality felt by its characters in the wake of a tragedy, Love Life is possibly a sneaky success. This, however, feels like giving the undisciplined screenplay too much credit. I was greatly impressed by recent features Harmonium and A Girl Missing from Fukada. This one feels like a stumble, though not a fatal one.