Nobody Knows

John Hughes played the idea of a child left behind by his parents for laughs in the Home Alone movies, but in Hirokazu Kore-eda's masterpiece Nobody Knows, the subject is treated seriously. Loosely based on an actual 1988 incident, the film focuses on four children, aged 4-12, who are effectively abandoned in a dingy apartment by their flighty mother, leaving the oldest--the somewhat dour and studious Akira (the amazing Yuya Yagira)--to look after his half-brother and two half-sisters. Their struggle to survive on their own is the centerpiece of this remarkable tale, which brilliantly depicts both the heartbreak and the resiliency of childhood by chronicling Akira's painstaking efforts to meet his responsibilities as head of the family in the face of mounting obstacles, financial and otherwise. What makes Nobody Knows so moving is that it tells this story naturalistically, almost in the style of Italian neo-realism--never descending to sentimentality, even during a tragedy toward the close. But while Kore-eda shoots the film in a stark, almost documentary fashion, he doesn't italicize the grimness of the situation; in fact, there's no more false grittiness in his approach than false romanticism. Both heartwarming and heartrending, this is highly recommended. Editor's Choice. (F. Swietek)