Shoplifters is heartbreaking but often funny and hopeful look at a family of thieves relying on each other to make it day to day.
Shoplifters is one of those rare movies that you cherish what you don’t know about the characters. Not because what’s beneath the surface will change your opinion of them. It’s because you know when that truth comes out that everything will change and you’d much rather spend more time with them in blissful ignorance.
That’s what is incredible about the Palme d’Or-winning drama by the renowned Japanese director Hirokazu Kore-eda. We know that there are things that the characters do that we should disavow, but Kore-eda achieves the same effect that Wes Anderson’s The Royal Tenenbaums does. For all the bad the characters do, we can’t help but want to hang out with them for all the good we see in them.
In the film, we follow a mismatched familial unit living in a small house in the middle of Tokyo that could barely fit one person, let alone six. There are husband and wife Osamu (Lily Franky) and Nobuyo (standout Sakura Ando), both part-time workers at low wage jobs that force them to rely on their elderly grandmother Hatsue’s (Kirin Kiki is fantastic) monthly pension to live.
That’s also the reason that Osamu along with his son Shoto (Kairi Jō) bond by shoplifting. The film even opens with them orchestrating a well-choreographed slick robbery of a grocery store without anyone in the store being the wiser.
However, everyone in the family is guilty of some less-than-legal methods for making money. Nobuyo snatches trinkets—a gold tie pin, for example—forgotten in clothes that run through the laundromat she works at. Hatsue has an affinity for pachinko slot machines, even though she doesn’t always use her own money to play. Aki (Mayu Matsuoka), a teen just barely old enough for college works in a porn cafe of sorts where she masturbates for anonymous patrons hidden behind a two-way mirror.
It’s not surprising considering their current financial position that the family isn’t happy when Osamu brings home a five-year-old girl names Yuri (Miyu Sasaki) he found alone in the cold. He says he’s only going to take her in for a few days, but when they find signs of abuse, they know they can’t let her go home and informally adopt her.
The first half of the movie plays out like a toned-down episode of Shameless. Though some of their methods for surviving or reprehensible, it’s so satisfying to watch this odd family unit interact in often funny, but also sweet exchanges. At one point, as Hatsue lovingly rubs ointment over one of Yuri’s many scars, Nobuyo tells her that even though you still see the scar the pain is gone.
Balancing what could have easily been too far into slapstick or overly sentimental, Kore-eda allows the love between the family members to shine at the center of Shoplifters. Though the first half can feel like it’s meandering, it’s all in service of setting up the family unit as a believable one so that when the plot hits do come they land with more impact—and that they do.
Eventually, after nearly two weeks, Yuri’s parents report her missing, which only strengthens the family’s urge to protect her—they cut her hair and buy her a new wardrobe to hide her from the police and media. And they fall into a routine. Shoto begins teaching Yuri, who they rename Lin, his shoplifting techniques, Osamu and Nobuyo rekindle their romance, and Aki meets an intriguing client.
All the moments that make this film great are quiet but so powerful. You realize that these are all people marginalized and discarded in some way that have come together to build each other back up again. However, what makes Shoplifters one of the best films of the year is the emotional fallout from the high of the first half. Like all good things, the happiness and joy must come to an end.
Throughout the movie, truths about the characters are unpacked until we have to re-contextualize everything we know about them and their relationships. But instead of making it a bombastic conclusion—it certainly edges on that—Shoplifters turns to its characters for the emotional wrap-up.
The members of the family are flung away from each other, but we’re reminded of what connected them in the first place—love. It’s not always spoken, but it’s always shown. In one of the most striking scenes in the movie—and maybe of the year—Osamu chases after a bus that Shoto is on. Shoto doesn’t turn to look at him until he’s out of view and then mouths the word “dad.” Shoplifters doesn’t need more than that to make its point and make you sob. It’s funny and emotional, uplifting and heartbreaking, it’s one of the best movies of the year.
Shoplifters is in theaters nationwide on November 23rd.
Karl’s rating:
Hey, I'm Karl, founder and film critic at Smash Cut. I started Smash Cut in 2014 to share my love of movies and give a perspective I haven't yet seen represented. I'm also an editor at The New York Times, a Rotten Tomatoes-approved critic, and a member of the Online Film Critics Society.