After the Storm

Ryota once wrote a prizewinning novel. Now he works as a private detective, gambles away what he earns, and is about to lose access to his son because he cannot keep up the support payments. On the night of a typhoon he is stranded at his mother's flat with his ex-wife and his boy. Hirokazu Kore-eda directed. Hiroshi Abe plays Ryota, Kirin Kiki his mother and Yōko Maki his ex-wife. It premiered at the 2016 Cannes Film Festival and opened in Japan on 21 May 2016. It runs 117 minutes and was shot over six weeks in 2014. Rotten Tomatoes has 96 percent of 138 reviews positive with an average of 8 out of 10. The worldwide gross was 5.3 million dollars. At the centre is one sentence: what does a person do when they did not become who they wanted to be. Kore-eda offers no solution, only one night. Who it is for: viewers who like Kore-eda and family films built out of ordinary detail. Who it is not for: anyone waiting for the story to arrive somewhere. By morning nothing is resolved, and that is the point.