SHOPLIFTERS

Director: Hirokazu Kore-eda

2018, Japan, 121, R

Screenwriter: Hirokazu Kore-eda

Cast: Lily Franky, Ando Sakura, Matsuoka Mayu, Kiki Kilin, Jyo Kairi & Sasaki Miyu.

 

The 2018 Winner of the Cannes Film Festival’s Palme d’or is a subversive masterpiece on an intimate scale, revealing the often-hidden poverty in Japan through the lens of one family. In this case, family is a loose collection of individuals bound together with affection and need: An injured day laborer and his wife, their daughter, who works in a sex club, a young orphan boy, and an elderly widow who lives on her husband’s pension (veteran actress Kirin Kiki in her final role). They turn to shoplifting to get by, and, just like in Dickens’ Oliver Twist, start instructing Juri – a neglected neighborhood girl they’ve taken in – on the tricks of the trade.

“In the family’s toughness, thieving and secrets Kore-eda finds a perfect story about being human.” – Manohla Dargis, a New York Times Critics Pick, and Japan’s Official Selection to the Academy Awards.