Love Life (2022)

Anyone else remember playing "Othello" (the board game - not the "enemy in your mouth to steal your brains" guy)? I loved it... Anyway, "Taeko" (Fumino Kimura) lives with her second husband "Jirô" (Kento Nagayama) who has cheerfully adopted her rather lively young son "Keita" (Tetta Shimada) who is always playing the game. Indeed he is a champion and part of an online group who thrive at the thing. It's his birthday and he's all excitable. Mum loves a bath but often forgets to drain it afterwards... An accident ensues that leads to her ex-husband "Paku" (the frequently scene-stealing Atomu Sunada) coming back into their lives. He is an homeless, deaf, man and as both work for the local authority, "Jirô" suggests that - not entirely for altruistic reasons - she try to find him an home. His continuing presence puts everyone under a microscope that assesses decisions made and those yet to come for not just the three directly involved, but for grandparents who wanted a grandchild of their own and for people from both of their past lives. It deals with the expected emotions of guilt and torment, but it manages to avoid steeping us in sentimentality nor does it immerse us too depressingly in what is clearly a scenario riddled with grief and "what ifs?". The young Shimada is enjoyable to watch at the start and there is a definite chemistry here as the adults come to terms with their situation. It may seem a little long, but I felt Kôji Fukada paced this well allowing the characters to evolve in a natural fashion and making this quite an enjoyably poignant, at times darkly humorous, tale of family.