"Shoplifters” Review
“Shoplifters” is a story about a family living in poverty in Tokyo. It’s directed by Hirokazu Koreeda and what I love about his movies is how he portrays “family” and Shoplifters is no different. Early in the movie a day labourer and a boy he refers to as “Shota” (Lily Franky and Kaiji Jo) takes in a neglected little girl (Miyu Sasaki) who has been locked out of an apartment balcony. They live in a cramped house the man’s wife (Sakura Ando), an elderly woman (Kirin Kiki) and her half granddaughter (Mayu Matsuoka). For them, life is terrible but they’re able to cope because they have each other.
It’s a very sad film but also a very joyous and tender one. Terrible things have happened or will happen to these characters. It’s a realistic slice-of-life drama that never feels melodramatic or inauthentic. Koreeda’s highly naturalistic approach to dialogue and editing makes this the most immersive movie I’ve seen this year to the point where the shots, cuts, direction and subtitles become invisible to me. Each character has a backstory that’s buried in their dialogue. Minor characters like the one played by Sosuke Ikematsu only has about two to three minutes of screentime and zero lines of dialogue and has a deep backstory while serving as a beautiful foil to one of the film’s main characters. The movie is dense with little details and motifs that most dramas don’t take the time to establish or develop. It’s a lot to unpack but it moves forward effortlessly through its two hours
Shoplifters won the 2018 Palme d’Or and for good reasons. It’s a deep character study set in an environment that we almost never see being portrayed. It’s one of the best dramas of the year and my favourite Koreeda film by far.