Shoplifters

"What defines a family?" is a question that runs through many of the films of Japan's Hirokazu Kore-eda, from the heartbreaking abandoned children of Nobody Knows (2004) to the loving acceptance and embrace of Our Little Sister (2015). An Oscar nominee for Best Foreign Language film, Shoplifters presents a family on the margins that is brought together by circumstance rather than blood. Three generations live together in a tight little hovel, living off grandma Hatsue’s (Kilin Kiki) meager pension, father Osamu’s (Franky Lily) menial day jobs, mother Nobuyo's (Sakura Ando) laundry work (supplemented by whatever she pilfers from pockets), and adult daughter Aki's (Mayu Matsuoka) joyless peep show job, with groceries shoplifted daily by adolescent son Shota (Jyo Kairi) while dad keeps lookout. When father and son come across a withdrawn little girl named Yuri (Sasaki Miyu) shivering in the cold night (locked outside by a callous mother), they take her home and she is welcomed into the warmth and bustle of the overcrowded apartment. Kore-eda doesn't romanticize their poverty or thievery; the “family” always seems to be one misstep away from losing it all and becomes more unsettled as the girl's face is suddenly all over the news (she is, after all, technically kidnapped). But as he reveals more of their checkered pasts and poor parenting choices, the viewer’s instinctive affection for these outcast and abandoned people becomes more complicated. Kore-eda favors the intimate and subtle over big drama and this film is filled with both touching and heartbreaking moments of affection and disappointment. Beautifully acted and directed, Shoplifters is a poetic film about what makes a family, and how we forgive those we love. Winner of the Palme d'Or at the Cannes Film Festival, this is highly recommended. (S. Axmaker)