Her Love Boils Bathwater

Futaba is working alone, her husband walked out one day and the family bathhouse has closed. When she is diagnosed with cancer and told her time is short, she makes a list rather than weeping: reopen the bathhouse, put the scattered family back together, and get her shy daughter Azumi standing on her own. She spends the months she has left completing the items. Ryota Nakano uses the shapes of the illness drama but puts work, not pain, at the center. Futaba is constantly doing something, and the film finds her insistence funny, hard and at moments uncomfortable. Maternal love here is not soft; it is imperative. Rie Miyazawa plays Futaba and Hana Sugisaki plays Azumi, and both won acting awards at the Japan Academy Prize. The film was Japan's submission to the Academy Awards and opened on 29 October 2016. Who it's for: Viewers who like Japanese family drama, strong female leads, and illness narratives balanced with humour. Who it's not for: The emotional pitch rises steeply in the final section and a few plot turns are forced. It also runs long.