Screened Out – Our Little Sister

[four-star-rating]Haruka Ayase, Masami Nagasawa, Kaho, Suzu Hirose[/four-star-rating]

This Japanese family tale is so light and airy. That’s both its greatest triumph and its flaw. Wistful and mesmerizing, Our Little Sister started life as episodic Japanese manga. This subtitled flick also plays like a collection of short, breezy episodes, often eschewing drive for for gorgeous, polite moments.

Much of the plot whispers through beautiful shots, sideways glances, and small revelations of emotion beneath kindness and culture. The cinematography is subtle; the acting is even subtler.

The film opens with an attractive young woman (Ayase) in bed with a man in the gray, early morning. Soon, it becomes clear that this is an unusual dalliance for her. She gets dressed, leaves, and meets her two younger and equally attractive sisters (Nagasawa, Kaho). They are at their estranged father’s funeral. Here, the three sisters meet Hirose, their heretofore-unknown half sister.

Clearly, Our Little Sister is about how children manage their parents’ failings. It’s also how the progeny repeats some of Mom and Dad’s mistakes. Are these choices really mistakes? And what are the long-term ramifications?

After realizing the young girl’s mother – their stepmother – is unfit to raise her, the three sisters agree to invite Hirose to live with them in their seaside retreat. And what a photogenic, rustic retreat it is! After both Dad and Mom abandoned the sisters, the girls lived in Grandmother’s idyllic house by the sea.

As scripted and filmed by Japanese auteur Hirozaku Kore-eda, Our Little Sister creates a female-centric world, much like the classic Swedish film Antonia’s Line.

Since their parents’ divorce, Ayase has taken care of her younger siblings. It’s a job she approaches with dour, unemotional duty. So, reaching out to Hirose isn’t surprising. Soon, Ayase is guiding the little sister just as she’s done to the other two. Ayase continues to judge their dates, as well as lead them in an old family tradition – plum wine making – that could’ve died with the parents’ marriage.

There is a certain happy charm to Our Little Sister – its rich setting, the rituals, and the spirited young women. Because of that feathery whimsy, some audiences may forgive that Kore-eda takes 80 of the film’s 130 minutes  to reach a real conflict. The secrets revealed are stirring. They also show what the film had been lacking up to that point.

[rating-key]

Still, a bicycle ride through cherry blossoms is mesmerizing. The food is so appealing that Our Little Sister could cause hunger pangs. The sisters are gentle and thoughtful and caring; they’re easy to like.

It’s a photogenic insight into young Japanese women. All in all, though, Our Little Sister has so little conflict – so little punch. One cannot call most of this careful movie dramatic, when nothing really happens. One could call it a comedy, I suppose, for the small smiles and wishful sighs it elicits.