Review of Tokyo Sonata (2008) by Yisell H — 26 Apr 2009

Ryuhei is a 46-year-old middle manager who shows up for work as usual one day only to be told to that his job is being outsourced to China. Next thing you know, he?s out on the street with all of his belongings in a couple of paper sacks trying to plan his next move. A quick trip to the local unemployment office proves fruitless as the line is so long that he never even makes it inside.

I get the impression that being laid off in Japan is much more of a source of embarrassment than it is in the U.S. Not only does Ryuhei not tell his wife, Megumi, what happened, but he keeps up the ruse for what seems like weeks, putting on a suit and tie each morning, grabbing his briefcase, and heading off to ?work?.

It?s been way too long since I?ve made a Brady Bunch reference in one of my reviews, so I?m pleased to point out that this is almost exactly the same thing that Peter Brady did when he was fired from his job at Mr. Martinelli?s bicycle repair shop and was too ashamed to tell his parents. Day after day, Peter pretended to go to work, but really sat in the park feeding the pigeons. Ryuhei also goes to the park, but in his case, he stands in a long line to get free meals doled out by charity workers.

Ryuhei and Megumi have two sons. Kenji is a quiet sixth grader who desperately wants to take piano lessons, despite his father?s adamant refusal. Takashi is out of high school but the only job he can find is handing out flyers on the street. He wants to join the U.S. military to fight in Afghanistan, but Ryuhei refuses to sign the parental permission slip. Neither boy is at all close to his father. When Kenji and Ryuhei happen to meet on the street, both on their way home, they barely acknowledge each other and continue on in silence.

Megumi is a very nice wife and mother who stays at home and cooks and cleans and always behaves pleasantly, even though she?s married to a cold, tyrannical jerk. She greets her husband and sons with a cheerful ?Welcome home!? before they even cross the threshold. (To which they always reply ?I?m home?. Somehow I think this greeting ritual doesn?t translate well.) When Takashi suggests that maybe his mother should leave his father, she reacts as if the idea is so far-fetched that it?s never even crossed her mind.

None of the members of the Ryuhei?s household are very happy, but they go through the motions and the greeting rituals and the silent shared dinners for most of the film with turmoil seething just below the surface. Then, with about thirty minutes to go, this turmoil simultaneously erupts in each of them and they're each suddenly embroiled in their own independent crises.

At this point, [i]Tokyo Sonata [/i]becomes a very different movie. Within a matter of about fifteen minutes, one of the three main characters (Takashi is out of the picture at the moment) is taken hostage, one is hit by a car, one is thrown in jail, one has an affair, and one finds a large sum of money. There?s running, running, and more running. What happened to the quiet little movie about the dysfunctional Japanese family?

I enjoyed [i]Tokyo Sonata[/i] despite its little segue into hellishness, which, since I?m talking Brady, seemed almost as shark-jumping as the addition of Cousin Oliver. Fortunately things settled back down before the credits rolled; my high rating ignores the fact that I spent fifteen minutes in complete befuddlement.