Like Father, Like Son (2013)

☆ ☆ ☆ ☆

Like Father, Like Son (2013) – H. Kore-eda

I’m a big fan of director Kore-eda (Maborosi, After Life, Nobody Knows) and his often poignant slices of Japanese life.  Crucially, he often begins his screenplays with a premise or set-up that he then follows through more or less logically and realistically to its appropriate conclusion.  His previous film, I Wish, focused on two young brothers who are separated by their parents’ divorce and how they arrange to transcend the space between them.  Here, more dramatically, two couples discover – six years later – that their sons were switched at birth and the film focuses on how they resolve this problem (i.e., do they choose to exchange their children or keep the boys they’ve raised, although not blood-related).  But Kore-eda uses this premise to focus in on one of the fathers, Ryota, a career-minded and emotionally constricted absent dad who has failed to forge a close relationship with his son. The unexpected event therefore allows him a chance to start again – or does it?  It also highlights the age-old question of nature vs. nurture as we are invited to decide whether the boys’ contrasting personalities reflect the personalities of their real dads or their adopted dads (who are also contrasted by being nouveau riche or on the poorer side). A lot of food for thought and some beautiful moments but also colder and more reserved than we often see from this director, likely due to the problematic central figure.