In this dark Japanese drama, Akie (Mariko Tsutsui) and her husband, Toshio (Kanji Furutachi), lead a dull suburban existence that revolves around their precocious young daughter, Hotaru (Momone Shinokawa). When Toshio’s old friend Yasaka (Tadanobu Asano) turns up one day hoping for work and board, all slick white shirt and self-possessed flirtatious energy, their drudgery is disrupted. Toshio obliges, unable to refuse for reasons revealed later, setting a life-altering chain of events in motion, the tension ratcheted up with the help of harmonium-playing Hotaru’s clacking metronome.
At the centre of the film is a trio of characters whose contrasting personalities rub up against each other in interesting ways; tensions arise between the carnal Yasaka, repressed housewife Akie and Toshio’s weak, withholding masculinity. Tsutsui’s tightly coiled performance is particularly compelling, a fury burning beneath her wearied, accommodating exterior. Cinematographer Kenichi Negishi paints the neighbourhood’s blank, cul-de-sacs in a washed-out watercolour palette, his unobtrusive camera floating along and keeping pace with Hotaru as she skates through the neighbourhood on Heelys. A chilling slow burner that’s as much about the breakdown of a relationship as it is a mystery, it skulks towards its bleak conclusion and stunning final shot.
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