Movie Review Shoplifters

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2018 – spoiler alerts – directed by Hirokazu Kore-Eda A Japanese movie in the 2019 Worldwise Learning Centre International Movie Festival. A film that moves from comedy to family drama to tearful separation over the course of its running time. A young boy is seen shoplifting in a convenience store, but if you think his father figure companion will stop him, think again, as he too is shoplifting, and in fact the whole family does it. They live together in a crowded house on the outskirts of Tokyo. When they save a young girl from freezing to death on the streets and take her in, they learn from TV reports that the family looking for her were abusive, they change her appearance and name and absorb her into the family. All seems happy and the family really care for one another, but crack are revealed. They are all waifs and strays absorbed into the gang. When the granny dies, they bury her in the yard and continue living off her falsified pension. Other members of the family are refugee from abusive families and partners too. Despite warnings that the new girl is too young for the shoplifting trips, her pretend-brother tries grooming her in and ends up getting himself caught to save her but the investigation into his life uncovers the whole history of the makeshift family and the children are doomed to go back to the abusive parents they fled. They still think of the leader of the gang, a Fagin-like character, as their real dad. The switching moods and pace changes keep the viewer uncertain where this is going. It really shows an underside of society where runaway are happier where they end up than back where they fled in the first place. Seeing the surrogate evolving, but fake family genuinely caring for one another, enjoying days at the beach together and being so family-like makes their unravelling tragic rather than a justified exposure of an underclass of criminals. Youtube Trailer for the film Arthur Chappell