English summary

‘Master filmmaker Kore-eda loves his characters unconditionally’
‘ Calm, meditative family drama’

Multiple award-winner Kore-eda (‘Nobody Knows’, ‘Still Walking’, Like Father, Like Son’) returns with a sensitive, powerful and humorous story, in which a father wants to restore his fractured relationship with his young son.

After the Storm revolves around Ryoto, once a famous, award-winning author, who is now wasting all his money on gambling. He is estranged from his pretty ex-wife and ageing mother, and has a poor relationship with his young son. A stormy summer’s night gives him the chance to take himself in hand and put things right with his family.

The director’s light touch, verging on nonchalance, draws you slowly into the story. As in his earlier works, Kore-eda shows in After the Storm both the pain and the immeasurable love people give each other in subtle and poetic ways. At times, it’s in a furtive glance or a seemingly casual remark, always precisely timed. The melancholy arising from how we emotionally wound and subsequently heal each other gives this film the power to move the viewer in a subtle way.