Ryota is a writer who at one time published an award-winning novel; many years later, he is making ends meet in a detective agency and tends to gamble away what he earns. He also is divorced and has a son Shingo, who Ryota sees only once a month (and the threat of not seeing Shingo hangs over him as he cannot seem to come up with the child support). Ryota is a disappointment to everyone, and when his father dies, he comes back in contact with his mother and sister and ultimately his ex-wife, and he evaluates his relationship with Shingo. I really liked the film; it is a very uncomplicated movie that provides glimpses of life and how the past the present. It is also a very compassionate story of how we can overlook people’s shortcomings and see the beauty in the complexity of the various relationships we have with people. Thumbs up from me; I saw the director’s previous film, Like Father, Like Son, which was also a father-son movie, and he manages to find new territory to explore in the current movie.
