‘Love Life Review: Encounters In Grief

Japanese writer and director Koji Fukada made an international name for himself with Harmony (2017). Like that film, his latest film, Love Life, follows a family torn apart by the sight of a stranger and surprising drama, this time in reverse.

Taiko (Fumino Kimura) and her husband Jiro (Kinto Nagayama) are raising a six-year-old son, a master of the Othello board game named Keito (Tita Shimada). The arrangement was not Jirou's original plan: he was preparing to marry a classmate, but cheated on him with Taiko and married Taiko. Taeko was actually Keita's mother, who was abandoned by her father. Now Jiro's parents, especially his father, look at Taeko and Kaito like they don't belong.

Then—about 20 minutes after the burglar alarm—Keita dies of shock in a bathtub accident after passing out at a party. (Fukada, who elsewhere prefers a calm and restrained visual style, plays the suffocating role of suspense with an extremely slow and violent build-up.)

Death draws Keita's father, Pak (Atam Sunada), a South Korean who is also deaf, and on the way to the funeral, he promptly slaps Taiko before hitting himself. Mutual blaming and attempts to reduce mutual guilt begin. Taiko can't forgive Park for leaving her, but she also believes that he needs her help. Jiro feels guilty about his relative lack of guilt.

It's more of a sad triangle than a love triangle, and the delayed reveal changes its symmetry and erases the hard-won admiration for a character. Perhaps part of Fukada's logic is that direct catharsis would be too easy. But in other ways, his drama is pretty weak, especially when it comes to endangering children as a means.

personal life
unclassified. In Japanese, Korean and Korean with subtitles. Duration: 2 hours and 3 minutes. in theaters.