The appeal of the “alternative” family is consistent throughout American cinema. It is evident in films like What’s Eating Gilbert Grape, whose protagonist lives with a morbidly obese, reclusive mother and an autistic brother, and in the 2015 film Captain Fantastic, which situates a family in the wilderness, guided by a strong-willed father who believes mainstream education is corrupting. Both films reflect a common mentality Americans seem to possess about life lessons and coming of age, namely that these filmic elements are more meaningful when framed by extreme circumstances. Shoplifters, the new film from Japanese director Hirokazu Koreeda, is inspired by that mentality, and as such sentiment is palpable.
Shoplifters follows Osamu Shibata, who, despite occasional employment as a construction worker, must shoplift to support himself and his family. The exact nature of the relationships between characters is mysterious, as we don’t initially know whether the women Osamu calls his mother and sister—and the boy Osama calls his son—are actually related to him. What we do know is that they all steal, working together to distract shop owners when stuffing shampoo or bathing suits into their backpacks. And they are masters. The family lives, crowded but comfortable, in an abandoned ground-floor building, and the way they laugh over apparently plentiful dinner suggests a standard of living absent crime. Their efficient system is complicated by Osamu’s discovery of a six-year-old girl named Yuri, who has run away from abusive parents. Rather than return Yuri, Osamu and his wife Nobuyo decide to informally (and illegally) adopt her.
So begins a succession of moments shared by this ragtag assortment of souls both young and old: trips to the beach, walks over bridges, dances in the rain, punctuated by the theft that sustains their livelihoods. It’s all quite moving, in part because Koreeda and his director of photography, Ryûto Kondô, so beautifully capture the gentle momentum of these outings. The waves at the beach swell and pulse like a heartbeat, and the falling rain is juxtaposed with the family’s open living room, warm yet vulnerable to the outside world. In addition, the film’s characters are injected with personality by a fine cast of actors. Lily Franky, as Osamu, is funny but pitiful, and he nails the contradiction between Osamu’s protective presence and incitement of actions that repeatedly put children in danger. Sakura Andô, playing Nobuyo, finds ways to express happiness that is believable in the context of such unpredictable day-to-day life. Her wry smiles and laughs reflect a melancholy that coexists with optimism.
What I struggled with after leaving the theater was the fact that, despite the film’s restrained production and visually bleak depiction of Tokyo, there existed a strong sense of romanticism. Yes, the family faces trials, and Osamu questions his morality, but ultimately I felt compelled to view this makeshift setup, where everyone is loved and wanted, as superior to financial stability, even though it meant practicing a moral code at odds with the one widely perceived to be right. It was hard for me to believe that six people could subsist off a practice that is inherently unreliable. They never appear to go without a meal, yet they can’t hold down jobs, despite obvious intelligence. Admittedly, I know nothing about the Japanese economic system, but in the same way Captain Fantastic shirks off the questions it raises about raising a family, Shoplifters doesn’t challenge its central family structure enough. Maybe that’s because Koreeda is criticizing the flaws in a society he knows well, and as a foreign viewer, I have no point of comparison. It is indeed true that I fell in love with the people I watched on screen, and though I looked back on its credibility critically, I was utterly absorbed for the run time.
Fergus Campbell is a freshman in Columbia College.