Yoko Maki was eye-catching in Like Father Like Son, exuding quiet strength. That role, however, afforded relatively little screen time, so it is reassuring to see she can up her game when front and centre in a role that is challenging, to say the least. Any narrative that has a rape victim willingly engage in a relationship with their rapist immediately sets itself a huge plausibility task. Sayonara Keikoku does not wholly succeed in meeting that challenge, but the fact that it does better than most is largely due to the quality of performance Yoko Maki and Shima Onishi bring to their respective roles.
A woman is suspected of killing her own child. She implicates a male neighbour in her testimony, and this sparks an investigation into the man's past by two tabloid journalists, the feisty Kobayashi (Anne Suzuki), and the world-weary Watanabe (Nao Omori). Harassed by his boss, ignored by his wife, Watanabe steals small moments of bliss away from work and home. The investigation into the man's past fractures the timeline of the narrative as the film cuts between a high school rape many years previously, and the present. The connecting thread, once established, strains visibly.
Personally, I went along with the story, and was involved moment-by-moment, without ever really accepting the plausibility of the premise driving it. But there is much to admire here, most of all Maki.
A woman is suspected of killing her own child. She implicates a male neighbour in her testimony, and this sparks an investigation into the man's past by two tabloid journalists, the feisty Kobayashi (Anne Suzuki), and the world-weary Watanabe (Nao Omori). Harassed by his boss, ignored by his wife, Watanabe steals small moments of bliss away from work and home. The investigation into the man's past fractures the timeline of the narrative as the film cuts between a high school rape many years previously, and the present. The connecting thread, once established, strains visibly.
Personally, I went along with the story, and was involved moment-by-moment, without ever really accepting the plausibility of the premise driving it. But there is much to admire here, most of all Maki.