Her Granddaughter (201-) Japan Cuts 2015

Tsugumi quits her job and moves into her recently deceased grandmother's home. She is recovering from a bad relationship and has a need to re-evaluate her life.  One morning she wakes up to find an older gentleman has moved into the annex of the house. He's a gruff philosophy professor who was an ex-student of Tsugumi's grandmother. What will happen between the pair.

One of the better romantic dramas of recent vintage this is a film that pulls you in and drags you along even though you know where it's probably going.

That the film works as well as it does is due to a combination of the story not being pat (even though it is a romance) and the two leads Nana Eikura and Etsushi Toyokawa, invest the characters with a life that is more than whats on the page. You can feel their lives bleeding off the screen at the start and as the film goes on and the details of their lives are filled in you sense the characters coming more into focus as well rounded people. I love that they seem like real people and not romantic cliches being shuttled around.

While this may not be one of the best films at Japan Cuts this year I think this may end up being one of my most favorite, which means I will be revisiting this film repeatedly from now on, which is probably a better endorsement than it being great.