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Review: Shoplifters (万引き家族) (2018)
This movie was different from what I expected. I thought it was going to be one of those typical "heart warming found family" movies, but I was actually glad to see that it wasn't.
This is about a found family, but they are together for reasons that are not totally altruistic. The people in this movie are not wholesome. They have obvious flaws that cannot be explained away.
I quite enjoyed this movie because of its exploration into the themes of family and poverty.
Spoilers.
Story
For the first good half of the movie, we were just getting to know this family. They had added Juri/Yuri/Rin to their family, and by the 2/3 mark, we had a relatively good grasp on each of the characters.
Things took a turn when two things happened. The first was when Grandma Hatsue died, and the family had to move on without out her. The second was when Shota stole in plain sight of a supermarket clerk and broke his leg when running away.
When those two things happened, the very delicate system that the family had perfected to support themselves came apart. They could no longer live under the radar as people would have found out that Grandma died, and Shota going to the hospital was the first time he had come into contact with official institutions.
After that, their family fell apart. Rin was returned to her original (abusive and neglectful) family, and Shota was sent to an orphanage. Nobuyo took the fall for concealing Hatsue's death. We don't know what happened to Aki, but I'm going to assume that she returned to her family, with whom she probably doesn't have a good relationship.
What I liked about the end of the movie is that it didn't hide the fact that when this web fell apart, the relationships between the characters soured. And the takeaway was that while there was real care between the characters, there was also a part of their relationships that were fundamentally non-altruistic, which may be deal-breaker for some, and not for others.
Production
Out of all of the actors in the movie, I really only recognize Lily Franky, who I'd seen in Like Father, Like Son. But overall, I had a good impression of all the actors, especially the little girl who played Rin.
I was a tad surprised that the movie had adult content because again, I was expecting this to be a heartwarming movie. But there were scenes with sexual content, including Aki's job at the hostess bar, and Osamu and Nobuyo having sex in the movie. So there was adult content in the movie; it wasn't graphic, but you would have needed to be an older person to understand the context, I think.
Anyway, I had no issues with the production value. It looked great, and nothing bothered me.
Characters
Shibata Osamu
Osamu worked in construction, and shoplifting was his side gig. In the first half of the movie, he was portrayed as a kind father figure who spent time with the kids and made them happy. He did teach Shota to shoplift, but in a weird way, it was easy for the audience members to forget that, because we were sympathizing with the poverty he was living in.
We started to see Osamu in a different light when Shota started to question the morality of shoplifting. The shopowner that he often stole at told Shota to stop making Rin steal, but Osamu had insisted that Rin needed to do her part to contribute to the family. Osamu had also previously justified to Shota that stealing from shops was okay, because those goods didn't belong to anybody. That view was challenged when Osamu stole a purse from a van, which did not sit right with Shota. So we could start to see that he wasn't necessarily a man of principle. He'd probably just told Shota whatever he could think of to get him to shoplift, but for Shota, as a child, that tenet was extremely important to him.
Whether Osamu truly believed that Rin needed to earn her keep is another question. Again, he may have just told that to get Shota to work with her. Did he really believe that a child would have to justify her spot in the family? However, Aki was allowed to keep whatever money she earned, and Osamu didn't have a problem with that, so I think he really was just saying whatever he could think of to get Shota to be more agreeable.
Osamu had this thing where he kept wanting Shota to call him dad. It seemed like he was the one who pushed for the family narrative the hardest, insisting that he was Shota and Rin's dad, and trying to get Shota to call Rin his little sister.
We don't know whose suggestion it was for Osamu, Nobuyo, Aki, and Rin to flee the house when Shota was in the hospital. In any case, at that moment, Osamu was just focused on not getting caught. He insisted that Shota would be taken care of at the hospital, which is technically true, but it's hard for a kid to accept that they were abandoned for whatever reason.
During the movie, it was revealed that Osamu used to be a client of Nobuyo (probably at a hostess bar or something more scandalous). And when questioned by the police, it was revealed that Osamu and Nobuyo had supposedly killed Nobuyo's ex-husband in defense. That's how the crime was ruled, but the police officers seemed to not believe in their innocent. During the interrogation, it also seemed to me that Osamu was pushing some responsibility onto Nobuyo, saying that he had thought taking Rin in was kidnapping but that Nobuyo said it was okay. In the end, Nobuyo did take the blame, but we don't know if she knew what Osamu said.
During the interrogation, Osamu said that he'd taught Shota to shoplift because he didn't know what else to teach them. That might've been true, but I think that Osamu just saw an opportunity. If he taught Shota to shoplift, he could have a helping hand. There was one evening when Osamu was showing simple magic tricks to Shota and Rin and it got me thinking as to whether Shota was interested in magic tricks. If he was, would he be interested in street performing? That would be a way of earning money that would probably sit better with him, right?
After Shota was sent to the orphanage, we saw scenes of Shota and Osamu hanging out. They fished together, and later, Shota went to visit Osamu. They were getting along, until Shota asked Osamu whether they ahd really planned to abandon him, which Osamu confirmed. From then on, Shota was quiet and subdued.
After Shota boarded the bus to get back to the orphanage, Osamu was trying all sorts of things to get Shota to respond to him, telling him to put the blame on him. As the bus left, Osamu chased after the bus, probably realizing that his admission would push Shota away for a long time. No one wants to know that they've been abandoned, and Osamu probably knew that. It was implied that Osamu and Nobuyo both came from very bad backgrounds, so he probably should've understood the trauma of neglect and abandonment.
Osamu probably wanted to apologize or do something more to get back into Shota's good books, but to me it was difficult to think of what he could say. Based on past history, I would guess that Osamu would say whatever was on his mind, without really truly thinking about it. I think they needed time apart. For Osamu, I don't think he would understand the impact he had on Shota until he had time to reflect on it.
Osamu's original name was Shota, so he named Shota after himself. Why did he do that? Was it out of hope that Shota would be better than himself? Maybe, but he did end up leading Shota down the same route of shoplifting. Maybe by putting his old name on a new person, he could erase his sins and start Shota's life anew. I doubt he named Shota out of ego, because otherwise, he would've kept his original name of Shota too.
In terms of Osamu's relationship with Nobuyo, he said that they didn't really have sex anymore, but they were still in love. Perhaps that was true, as they did have a good relationship. But was their relationship also out of convenience? Everybody needs emotional support, and they had been together for so long that they knew each other quite well. I did sense Osamu putting some blame on Nobuyo when questioned by the police, but I don't think Nobuyo really hated him for that. As two people who lived tough lives, I think she realized that they had to do what they had to do to survive. And when Osamu visited Nobuyo in prison, they seemed to get along fine, though he was iffy about her telling Shota about the truth of his parentage.
Osamu was an interesting guy. On the outside, he looked like a kind-hearted father figure, but he lacked foresight and did not exhibit wisdom, only short-sighted street smarts.
Shibata Nobuyo
Nobuyo worked at a laundry service. She was kind of a tough woman, but that was just her nature, and not because she was a mean person. When Rin arrived at the house, very soon we saw that Nobuyo was very kind and gentle with her.
Nobuyo's workplace was forced to fire one of their higher paying hourly workers, and she had to fight it out with a coworker. That coworker used the leverage of knowing that Nobuyo was housing Rin, who was widely known to be a missing child. So basically, this showed that Nobuyo had already bonded quite a bit with Rin.
For most of the movie, I actually felt that Nobuyo was rather relaxed. Like I said, she had a tough personality, but she was kind as a person.
When questioned by the police, her past with her husband was brought up. As mentioned, she and Osamu were cleared of killing her ex-husband due to self-defense, but even then, the police would still see her as suspicious. Then, the police attacked her infertility, implying that she had kidnapped Rin because she had so badly wanted to be a mother. This may or may not be true. Throughout the movie, we saw actions from Nobuyo that could be interpreted as her wanting to be a mother, or could just be nothing. Nobuyo not wanting to return Rin to her family could be her wanting to be a mother, but if that was the case, I don't think she would've walked her back all the way to her house. It was when Osamu and Nobuyo heard Rin's parents fighting that she didn't want to return Rin to them. In addition, Nobuyo revealed that Osamu and Nobuyo found Shota in a car in the parking lot of a pachinko parlour. But the circumstances around how he was found was unclear. Did they deliberately break open a window to steal him? Did they take him in because he showed signs of poor treatment?
Several times in the movie, Nobuyo said that it was nice to be able to choose a family. Grandma was surprised that Rin wanted to stay with them, and Nobuyo commented that maybe it was because Rin got to choose that she enjoyed being with them so much. And at the beach, Nobuyo again mentioned that it was nice to choose.
And that is why I think Nobuyo decided to tell Shota the information she knew to help him find his birth family. She wanted to give him the chance to choose his biological family, or to continue living in the orphanage. By having the chance to choose, he would cherish his family that much more.
Nobuyo was overall a gentle and kind person. Rough on the outside, but soft on the inside. Perhaps she was once cutthroat and hard, and that was how she got herself in that mess with her ex-husband. But with her chosen family, who were relatively non-threatening, she was kind. I think Nobuyo was good at reading the situation, and just going through life one step at a time.
Shibata Hatsue
Hatsue was the grandmother, who owned the house that the family lived in. Developers kept trying to get her to sell out but she refused. She also said that she kept the family around and allowed them to stay with her because she didn't want to die alone, and that is understandable. Hatsue also received a pension courtesy of her deceased husband, and that went towards supporting the family.
Hatsue's husband had a child with another woman and subsequently left Hatsue. It was shown that Hatsue would regularly visit the son of her husband and his affair partner, who was living in a nice home. They had two children, the older who was Aki, and the younger who was shown to be an energetic young girl.
In their conversations, they talked about Aki being in Australia, but we don't know whether Aki's parents knew that (1) she wasn't in Australia and that (2) she was living with Hatsue. After each meeting, the dad would give Hatsue some money.
The police spun the story that Aki's parents knew she was living with Hatsue and that they gave her money to take care of her. But personally, I didn't totally buy that. I can see the parents giving Hatsue money as damages, since her husband leaving her left her with no children and no one to take care of her in her old age. As for Aki living in Australia, I think it was Hatsue who brought that up, and maybe they truly didn't know, or they were just playing along with the metaphor to keep her happy.
Hatsue died of old age, which makes sense as she was quite old. I just don't think that Hatsue was particularly malicious in her decision to house everybody under her roof. I truly think she did it because she was lonely, and thought of nothing else.
Shibata Aki
Aki was a young girl working at a hostess club. From what we saw, her job entailed performing suggestive acts in front of a dark-tinted glass, but without actually getting naked or performing sex acts. Aki used her sister's name Sayaka as her work name, which Hatsue thought was a bit cruel, but I think it implied that Aki had a bad relationship with her sister, which would have made sense. We saw that Sayaka was a energetic young girl. When she was on screen, she was rushing out to school with a violin on her back (implying she was well learned) and she had a very good relationship with her parents, talking about what she wanted for dinner. I can imagine how Sayaka would look like an absolute goody-two-shoes to someone who was any less than a perfect student and perfect daughter. So by using Sayaka as her stage name, I felt that Aki was showing that she was a bit bitter about her family situation.
At the hostess bar, Aki had a regular called 4 ban-san. Through the dark glass, he could see Aki, but Aki could usually only see the words that he'd write on a white board. She could see hints of his face, but only when she got up real close to the glass. During the movie, she told 4 ban-san that she wanted to finally meet him, and invited him to go to a chat room, where they could meet face to face. There, 4 ban-san just lay on her lap as Aki talked.
I think it was implied that 4 ban-san was partially mute, as he would only speak in actions, and when Aki hugged him. In any case, Aki felt a connection to him, probably because he was the only person who liked her for what she was. The family doesn't count, because none of them are really her age. But 4 ban-san knew that she worked at a hostess bar, really not the most respectable job in society, and he still came to see her again and again. He shed tears as he lay in her lap, and he wiped them off as their time was up. I think Aki just never knew anybody who was as respectful towards her as he was, and that meant something to her. Even if it wasn't romantic feelings, she still felt a connection with him through intimate actions, and through the recognition that both of them lacked emotional support.
As mentioned, Aki probably had a bad relationship with her own family. It's interesting that she loved Hatsue so much, definitely more than her own family. And at the very least, Osamu and Nobuyo accepted her for who she was, and acknowledged her as a human being. I think Aki liked Rin quite a bit too, acting as a kind of older sister figure.
Aki did try to escape the house with Osamu, Nobuyo, and Rin, but I'm kind of thinking that it wasn't really her idea. I got the sense that she was just going with what they suggested. She'd never been one of the decision makers of the family.
During the police investigation, the police tried to drive a wedge between her and the family by implying that Hatsue was only taking care of her because she'd received money from Aki's parents. The police also revealed to her that Nobuyo and Osamu were involved in a crime in the past, to scare her away from them. In any case, I think that Aki probably told the police all the she knew in the end.
At the end of the movie, I think we saw Aki going back to the house and seeing if anybody was there. She was dressed quite nicely, so I'm going to guess that she returned to her biologically family, but the fact that she returned to the house implies that she wouldn't forget them.
Shibata Shota
Shota was the little boy. He had basically been with Osamu and Nobuyo ever since he could remember. He knew that they weren't his biological parents, but they were essentially the only constant adults in his life since he could remember. Everything that he knew was taught by Osamu and Nobuyo.
Shota didn't go to school, because he was taught that kids only go to school if they can't study at home. He was also taught that stealing from shops was okay because those goods didn't belong to anybody yet. As I mentioned, Osamu probably just said that to pacify Shota, but he took it to heart, because he was a kid.
He probably started questioning the morality of stealing when the shopkeeper told him to stop getting his sister to steal. It implied that the shopkeeper was allowing him to steal all those years, but he would not allow Shota to teach his craft to others. I guess getting caught for the first time was a bit of a wake up call to Shota.
When Osamu was planning to steal a handbag from a car, Shota was really unhappy, because he was stealing something that already belonged to someone. Not only would Shota not help him, but Shota didn't even give Osamu that high five he craved. But at the same time, Shota didn't know how to do anything other than shoplift. Osamu never taught him much else. When he told Osamu that he had intended to get caught stealing, I think he wanted to get caught so that someone would stop him from stealing. He was hoping that someone would intervene and tell him what to do.
There was that subplot about Shota accepting the other characters as his family. At first, he got upset when Osamu told him to call Rin his little sister. He said he didn't want to include Rin in shoplifting and he wanted it to be just Osamu and him. So I guess at first he was a bit jealous that there was a kid other than him. But he did eventually come around to calling Rin his little sister when Osamu prodded him. I think it wasn't so hard to call Rin his little sister because their relationship was not complex. They were just two kids, two playmates. How complex could their relationship be? As the older brother, he gave her guidance, and they gave each other company.
Shota was a lot more apprehensive about calling Osamu father. He knew that biologically, Osamu was not his father, so that might've been a part of it. I think he was also hesitant to call Osamu father because he had started thinking about how Osamu and Nobuyo came to take care of him. As mentioned, he was thinking about whether Osamu had stolen him from a car like how he'd stolen a purse from someone. And if he'd been forcefully taken from his home, he would've found it difficult to call Osamu father.
Shota was pretty cooperative with the police, because, like, he's a kid. They told him that his family had abandoned him. I don't know whether he believed that at first, but it started to get him thinking, and also, the police officers were pretty kind so he didn't really have a reason not to talk to them.
In the end, he was sent to an orphanage. The officer who spoke with him said that he had to go to school because he would learn things there that he couldn't learn at home, such as how to interact with other people.
After Shota did start living at the orphanage, he maintained a good relationship with Osamu and Nobuyo. He went fishing with Osamu, and it was like nothing happened. When Shota went to visit Nobuyo in prison, she told him the details of how they found him, thus giving him a choice to look for his biological family if he so wished. I don't think Shota made a decision as to what to do right at that moment, but having that option got him thinking.
When he spent time with Osamu at his house, he asked Osamu whether he had truly planned to abandon him. Osamu said that he had. I think Osamu realized that even if he'd tried to explain himself, Shota wouldn't really believe him. What mattered was that the family left him when he was all alone in the hospital.
The next morning, Shota was very quiet and subdued. Osamu tried to ease the relations between them, telling Shota to put the blame on Osamu if he got in trouble, but Shota didn't say much more than a simple agreement.
After Shota boarded the bus, Osamu tried to chase after him, unsuccessfully. Shota turned around, and called out to his father, though silently. I don't believe that Shota truly saw Osamu as his father. I think that what Shota was doing was acknowledging that in the formative years of his life, Osamu had been one of his main caretakers, and he had truly bonded with him.
But I think the truth of the abandonment was too important for him to just overlook, and we know that this movie is not a happy heartwarming movie. And Nobuyo had given him information for him to make a choice. So I think he has that important choice ahead of him, of whether he wants to look for his biological family or not.
Hojo Juri/Yuri/Rin
Rin was a girl who lived in the neighbourhood of the family. One day Osamu and Shota brought her to their home because she looked down, and that's when they discovered that she had been abused. They had planned to return her but upon hearing the absolute carnage going on between the mom and another man, Osamu and Nobuyo turned back.
Initially, Rin had gone by the name Yuri. Two months after she'd joined the family, she finally went on the news for being a missing child. It was revealed that her real name was Juri. After that scare, Rin got a haircut and her name was changed from Yuri to Rin. After a bit of a time skip, we saw that Rin was a lot more talkative with the family, which was nice to see.
It was implied that Nobuyo had also been abused, and Nobuyo used her experience to bond with Rin. She taught her that being hurt was never acceptable, and she also taught her that it was okay to leave the hurtful things in the past.
After getting caught by the police, Rin was returned to her biological family. The news reporters asked her mother whether she'd cooked a dish for Juri to eat, and her mother said yes, but I think it was implied that she very did not. So the news did not cover anything about Juri's parents being abusive.
When Juri returned to her biological family, however, we saw that she was already a different girl. She had a bit more conviction. As her mom was putting on makeup, she touched the scrape on her face, which prompted her mom to yelp out in pain. Her mom told her to say sorry, but Juri didn't do anything. Technically she was being a brat, but I think Juri was just afraid that her mom was do something when she said sorry. Juri's mom also asked her to come close, and promised her new clothes if she did. In the scene in which Hatsue and Nobuyo went clothes shopping for Rin, she said she didn't want the clothes because she didn't want to get hit, and Nobuyo told her that she wouldn't hit her for getting clothes. So now Juri knew that she isn't supposed to get hit for getting clothes, and so she refused to follow her mom's instruction.
The movie ended with Juri playing by herself, and occasionally looking out on the balcony, probably longing for a family that she wouldn't have again.
Themes
Family
Like most found family movies, the idea of being able to choose your family was an obvious theme. Nobuyo said many times that maybe they were happy because they got to choose their family. Of course, it's easier to think that these six people were together because they loved each other and got along.
However, this movie also explored the dark sides of how family came together. Were they together because they got along? Or were they together because it was convenient?
Were Nobuyo and Osamu together because they loved each other, or was it because it was just easier to survive as a couple (financially and emotionally)? In today's economy, it's especially difficult to do anything if you're not in a relationship with someone else. Couples get discounts, benefits, etc.
If anybody came to Hatsue, she probably would've let them stay. In this case, it just so happened that it was these five people that came to her. On the flip side, if Osamu, Nobuyo, or Aki had enough money, would they live with Hatsue? Probably not.
As Osamu mentioned, was it required that every member of the family contribute to justify their role? Why did Shota and Rin have to justify being allowed to be in a family? I don't think they do, but what about the adults?
The police told Shota that family doesn't abandon each other, which is true. But we saw so many instances of families abandoning each other in this movie, as well as in the real world. Hatsue had no one to take care of her, and as far as Aki's parents knew, she was probably living alone. Aki's parents also did not take care of Aki at all. If they really thought she was in Australia, they never tried to reach out, or else they would've known that she wasn't. And if they knew that she wasn't in Australia, they probably didn't extend care to her the way she needed. Rin's parents also neglected her severely.
In addition, people usually have no choice when it comes to family. People don't choose their parents growing up. Shota did not choose to be raised by Osamu and Nobuyo. Is it fair to him that he grew up this way? Should he be thankful to them for raising him, even when they may have taken him forcefully?
Nobuyo and Osamu also had different views of family. Osamu was always trying to get the kids to call him dad. He felt that if they said it out loud, they would become a real family. Nobuyo was not so rigid. She already felt like a mother figure to the kids, and she told Shota that she didn't care that much about names. When the police detectives asked Nobuyo what the kids called her, she said "I wonder..." without answering. She'd never thought of titles because they never mattered to her. She knew that just because a woman gave birth didn't mean that she was a mother. But some people did not see it that way.
There are a lot of questions here that will always remained unanswered. There is no universal definition for family, and that is very obvious when we consider how different cultures treat family.
Short-sightedness in poverty
The family lived in extreme poverty. We saw how Osamu, Nobuyo, and Aki were struggling in their jobs. Because the family lived in poverty, they had to be short sighted.
When Hatsue died, Osamu instructed the kids that they could not bring her up again. They had to learn to move on in order to survive. All of the characters had to learn to move on from the past for their own mental health and well-being.
I doubt that Hatsue cared anymore about her husband's infidelity. If she was, she wouldn't have lived to be this old. She'd be raging day in and day out about her husband leaving her. Frankly she only brought up her husband for financial reasons, whether it was the pension, or visiting his son for the money.
Osamu and Nobuyo's past was a huge surprise, as we never would've thought that they were involved in the death of another person. But they had to move on from it in order to survive. They were more concerned with making money to survive.
Aki's past was painful for her as well. She looked like a very happy young girl, but knowing how different she was from her biological family, I can see how she would've suffered being around them. She probably always felt inferior compared to how prim and proper her parents and sister were.
Shota's past was blocked off from him through no choice of his own. There was a chance that his family were gamblers, considering he was left in the car in the parking lot of a pachinko parlour, but we don't know that. Shota never had that chance to know them. And since he was living in poverty, he couldn't keep dreaming of his biological parents because those dreams couldn't keep him alive.
Rin's situation was similar to Aki in that it was painful for her to think of her biological family. She'd never been cared for and cherished like she was in the family. I remember when Rin got her haircut, everybody was raving about how cute she looked. She never would've gotten that from her mother.
Stealing
Shota had a moral dilemma about stealing during the movie. He truly believed that it was okay to steal from shops because those things did not belong to anybody yet.
But Osamu stole for survival. When he hurt his leg, he stole bigger things because he needed to make up for the money he wouldn't earn from his job. When he stole the purse from the car, he saw a huge opportunity that he couldn't let go of. That bag was probably worth tons of money, and he just couldn't let that go. This went against Shota's core beliefs, that he thought Osamu believed in as well.
Why did the shopkeeper let Shota steal from him again and again? Perhaps the shopkeeper thought that it was just a bad habit that Shota would grow out from. And he probably had set aside a budget for kids stealing things from him. But the shopkeeper would not let Shota teach Rin to steal, which was interesting. He could let Shota have that bad habit but he would not let him spread it to others.
Public image
What was presented on the news was extremely different from what we saw of the family.
The most obvious example was related to Juri/Rin. When Juri had gone missing and her parents had not reported her disappearance for two months, the news did not at all talk about how Juri's mom was abusive. And after Juri was returned, the reporters were trying to paint it as a loving mother glad to have her daughter back, asking if she'd cooked for Juri.
Osamu and Nobuyo was painted as vicious murderers even though they had been cleared by the courts of self defense. Knowing Osamu and Nobuyo, it was easy for me to see that if Osamu and Nobuyo were faced with a violent man, they would react in kind and try to hide the evidence because the law did not work for people who were like them.
The entire story of six people living in Hatsue's house was probably sensationalized by the media. We saw a reporter in front of the house hyping up the mystery. When in reality, it was six people who were lonely or had nowhere to live finding company in that house.
We just saw the merits of various things with a negative reputation.
For example, all those people living under Hatsue's roof was seen as creepy and weird, but Hatsue was the only person who gave those people shelter when they would not have been able to find it elsewhere.
Aki worked at a hostess bar, which was seen as bad and scandalous. But Aki and 4 ban-san found intimacy and a connection in that place, when they would probably be shunned in real life, Aki for being a hostess, and 4 ban-san for being a client as well as someone who probably has issues with socialization.
Justice system
In this movie, we saw instances when the justice system was not able to address the needs of people.
They tried to get each of the characters to open up by revealing their secrets, and by pointing out all the negatives of why the others were bad and why the family was bad.
Rin was obviously more cared for in the family than she was with her biological mom, and yet the justice system saw her being returned to her biological mom was the right thing. Nobuyo challenged the police on this, and instead, the police detectives attacked her inability to have children.
Shota was sent to an orphanage, where he'd live with six other kids and would go to school. While going to school would be good for him because he would learn to socialize, would he get the love and care he needed in the foster home? That's an awful lot of kids in one house.
Overall
This was a good movie. I really like when movies explore themes in depth, and I prefer that to movies who explore a lot of themes but only superficially.
The story was unique, especially the fact that this didn't end up being the heartwarming happy movie that I thought it would be. I really like that it challenged our views of many things.
This is about a found family, but they are together for reasons that are not totally altruistic. The people in this movie are not wholesome. They have obvious flaws that cannot be explained away.
I quite enjoyed this movie because of its exploration into the themes of family and poverty.
Spoilers.
Story
For the first good half of the movie, we were just getting to know this family. They had added Juri/Yuri/Rin to their family, and by the 2/3 mark, we had a relatively good grasp on each of the characters.
Things took a turn when two things happened. The first was when Grandma Hatsue died, and the family had to move on without out her. The second was when Shota stole in plain sight of a supermarket clerk and broke his leg when running away.
When those two things happened, the very delicate system that the family had perfected to support themselves came apart. They could no longer live under the radar as people would have found out that Grandma died, and Shota going to the hospital was the first time he had come into contact with official institutions.
After that, their family fell apart. Rin was returned to her original (abusive and neglectful) family, and Shota was sent to an orphanage. Nobuyo took the fall for concealing Hatsue's death. We don't know what happened to Aki, but I'm going to assume that she returned to her family, with whom she probably doesn't have a good relationship.
What I liked about the end of the movie is that it didn't hide the fact that when this web fell apart, the relationships between the characters soured. And the takeaway was that while there was real care between the characters, there was also a part of their relationships that were fundamentally non-altruistic, which may be deal-breaker for some, and not for others.
Production
Out of all of the actors in the movie, I really only recognize Lily Franky, who I'd seen in Like Father, Like Son. But overall, I had a good impression of all the actors, especially the little girl who played Rin.
I was a tad surprised that the movie had adult content because again, I was expecting this to be a heartwarming movie. But there were scenes with sexual content, including Aki's job at the hostess bar, and Osamu and Nobuyo having sex in the movie. So there was adult content in the movie; it wasn't graphic, but you would have needed to be an older person to understand the context, I think.
Anyway, I had no issues with the production value. It looked great, and nothing bothered me.
Characters
Shibata Osamu
Osamu worked in construction, and shoplifting was his side gig. In the first half of the movie, he was portrayed as a kind father figure who spent time with the kids and made them happy. He did teach Shota to shoplift, but in a weird way, it was easy for the audience members to forget that, because we were sympathizing with the poverty he was living in.
We started to see Osamu in a different light when Shota started to question the morality of shoplifting. The shopowner that he often stole at told Shota to stop making Rin steal, but Osamu had insisted that Rin needed to do her part to contribute to the family. Osamu had also previously justified to Shota that stealing from shops was okay, because those goods didn't belong to anybody. That view was challenged when Osamu stole a purse from a van, which did not sit right with Shota. So we could start to see that he wasn't necessarily a man of principle. He'd probably just told Shota whatever he could think of to get him to shoplift, but for Shota, as a child, that tenet was extremely important to him.
Whether Osamu truly believed that Rin needed to earn her keep is another question. Again, he may have just told that to get Shota to work with her. Did he really believe that a child would have to justify her spot in the family? However, Aki was allowed to keep whatever money she earned, and Osamu didn't have a problem with that, so I think he really was just saying whatever he could think of to get Shota to be more agreeable.
Osamu had this thing where he kept wanting Shota to call him dad. It seemed like he was the one who pushed for the family narrative the hardest, insisting that he was Shota and Rin's dad, and trying to get Shota to call Rin his little sister.
We don't know whose suggestion it was for Osamu, Nobuyo, Aki, and Rin to flee the house when Shota was in the hospital. In any case, at that moment, Osamu was just focused on not getting caught. He insisted that Shota would be taken care of at the hospital, which is technically true, but it's hard for a kid to accept that they were abandoned for whatever reason.
During the movie, it was revealed that Osamu used to be a client of Nobuyo (probably at a hostess bar or something more scandalous). And when questioned by the police, it was revealed that Osamu and Nobuyo had supposedly killed Nobuyo's ex-husband in defense. That's how the crime was ruled, but the police officers seemed to not believe in their innocent. During the interrogation, it also seemed to me that Osamu was pushing some responsibility onto Nobuyo, saying that he had thought taking Rin in was kidnapping but that Nobuyo said it was okay. In the end, Nobuyo did take the blame, but we don't know if she knew what Osamu said.
During the interrogation, Osamu said that he'd taught Shota to shoplift because he didn't know what else to teach them. That might've been true, but I think that Osamu just saw an opportunity. If he taught Shota to shoplift, he could have a helping hand. There was one evening when Osamu was showing simple magic tricks to Shota and Rin and it got me thinking as to whether Shota was interested in magic tricks. If he was, would he be interested in street performing? That would be a way of earning money that would probably sit better with him, right?
After Shota was sent to the orphanage, we saw scenes of Shota and Osamu hanging out. They fished together, and later, Shota went to visit Osamu. They were getting along, until Shota asked Osamu whether they ahd really planned to abandon him, which Osamu confirmed. From then on, Shota was quiet and subdued.
After Shota boarded the bus to get back to the orphanage, Osamu was trying all sorts of things to get Shota to respond to him, telling him to put the blame on him. As the bus left, Osamu chased after the bus, probably realizing that his admission would push Shota away for a long time. No one wants to know that they've been abandoned, and Osamu probably knew that. It was implied that Osamu and Nobuyo both came from very bad backgrounds, so he probably should've understood the trauma of neglect and abandonment.
Osamu probably wanted to apologize or do something more to get back into Shota's good books, but to me it was difficult to think of what he could say. Based on past history, I would guess that Osamu would say whatever was on his mind, without really truly thinking about it. I think they needed time apart. For Osamu, I don't think he would understand the impact he had on Shota until he had time to reflect on it.
Osamu's original name was Shota, so he named Shota after himself. Why did he do that? Was it out of hope that Shota would be better than himself? Maybe, but he did end up leading Shota down the same route of shoplifting. Maybe by putting his old name on a new person, he could erase his sins and start Shota's life anew. I doubt he named Shota out of ego, because otherwise, he would've kept his original name of Shota too.
In terms of Osamu's relationship with Nobuyo, he said that they didn't really have sex anymore, but they were still in love. Perhaps that was true, as they did have a good relationship. But was their relationship also out of convenience? Everybody needs emotional support, and they had been together for so long that they knew each other quite well. I did sense Osamu putting some blame on Nobuyo when questioned by the police, but I don't think Nobuyo really hated him for that. As two people who lived tough lives, I think she realized that they had to do what they had to do to survive. And when Osamu visited Nobuyo in prison, they seemed to get along fine, though he was iffy about her telling Shota about the truth of his parentage.
Osamu was an interesting guy. On the outside, he looked like a kind-hearted father figure, but he lacked foresight and did not exhibit wisdom, only short-sighted street smarts.
Shibata Nobuyo
Nobuyo worked at a laundry service. She was kind of a tough woman, but that was just her nature, and not because she was a mean person. When Rin arrived at the house, very soon we saw that Nobuyo was very kind and gentle with her.
Nobuyo's workplace was forced to fire one of their higher paying hourly workers, and she had to fight it out with a coworker. That coworker used the leverage of knowing that Nobuyo was housing Rin, who was widely known to be a missing child. So basically, this showed that Nobuyo had already bonded quite a bit with Rin.
For most of the movie, I actually felt that Nobuyo was rather relaxed. Like I said, she had a tough personality, but she was kind as a person.
When questioned by the police, her past with her husband was brought up. As mentioned, she and Osamu were cleared of killing her ex-husband due to self-defense, but even then, the police would still see her as suspicious. Then, the police attacked her infertility, implying that she had kidnapped Rin because she had so badly wanted to be a mother. This may or may not be true. Throughout the movie, we saw actions from Nobuyo that could be interpreted as her wanting to be a mother, or could just be nothing. Nobuyo not wanting to return Rin to her family could be her wanting to be a mother, but if that was the case, I don't think she would've walked her back all the way to her house. It was when Osamu and Nobuyo heard Rin's parents fighting that she didn't want to return Rin to them. In addition, Nobuyo revealed that Osamu and Nobuyo found Shota in a car in the parking lot of a pachinko parlour. But the circumstances around how he was found was unclear. Did they deliberately break open a window to steal him? Did they take him in because he showed signs of poor treatment?
Several times in the movie, Nobuyo said that it was nice to be able to choose a family. Grandma was surprised that Rin wanted to stay with them, and Nobuyo commented that maybe it was because Rin got to choose that she enjoyed being with them so much. And at the beach, Nobuyo again mentioned that it was nice to choose.
And that is why I think Nobuyo decided to tell Shota the information she knew to help him find his birth family. She wanted to give him the chance to choose his biological family, or to continue living in the orphanage. By having the chance to choose, he would cherish his family that much more.
Nobuyo was overall a gentle and kind person. Rough on the outside, but soft on the inside. Perhaps she was once cutthroat and hard, and that was how she got herself in that mess with her ex-husband. But with her chosen family, who were relatively non-threatening, she was kind. I think Nobuyo was good at reading the situation, and just going through life one step at a time.
Shibata Hatsue
Hatsue was the grandmother, who owned the house that the family lived in. Developers kept trying to get her to sell out but she refused. She also said that she kept the family around and allowed them to stay with her because she didn't want to die alone, and that is understandable. Hatsue also received a pension courtesy of her deceased husband, and that went towards supporting the family.
Hatsue's husband had a child with another woman and subsequently left Hatsue. It was shown that Hatsue would regularly visit the son of her husband and his affair partner, who was living in a nice home. They had two children, the older who was Aki, and the younger who was shown to be an energetic young girl.
In their conversations, they talked about Aki being in Australia, but we don't know whether Aki's parents knew that (1) she wasn't in Australia and that (2) she was living with Hatsue. After each meeting, the dad would give Hatsue some money.
The police spun the story that Aki's parents knew she was living with Hatsue and that they gave her money to take care of her. But personally, I didn't totally buy that. I can see the parents giving Hatsue money as damages, since her husband leaving her left her with no children and no one to take care of her in her old age. As for Aki living in Australia, I think it was Hatsue who brought that up, and maybe they truly didn't know, or they were just playing along with the metaphor to keep her happy.
Hatsue died of old age, which makes sense as she was quite old. I just don't think that Hatsue was particularly malicious in her decision to house everybody under her roof. I truly think she did it because she was lonely, and thought of nothing else.
Shibata Aki
Aki was a young girl working at a hostess club. From what we saw, her job entailed performing suggestive acts in front of a dark-tinted glass, but without actually getting naked or performing sex acts. Aki used her sister's name Sayaka as her work name, which Hatsue thought was a bit cruel, but I think it implied that Aki had a bad relationship with her sister, which would have made sense. We saw that Sayaka was a energetic young girl. When she was on screen, she was rushing out to school with a violin on her back (implying she was well learned) and she had a very good relationship with her parents, talking about what she wanted for dinner. I can imagine how Sayaka would look like an absolute goody-two-shoes to someone who was any less than a perfect student and perfect daughter. So by using Sayaka as her stage name, I felt that Aki was showing that she was a bit bitter about her family situation.
At the hostess bar, Aki had a regular called 4 ban-san. Through the dark glass, he could see Aki, but Aki could usually only see the words that he'd write on a white board. She could see hints of his face, but only when she got up real close to the glass. During the movie, she told 4 ban-san that she wanted to finally meet him, and invited him to go to a chat room, where they could meet face to face. There, 4 ban-san just lay on her lap as Aki talked.
I think it was implied that 4 ban-san was partially mute, as he would only speak in actions, and when Aki hugged him. In any case, Aki felt a connection to him, probably because he was the only person who liked her for what she was. The family doesn't count, because none of them are really her age. But 4 ban-san knew that she worked at a hostess bar, really not the most respectable job in society, and he still came to see her again and again. He shed tears as he lay in her lap, and he wiped them off as their time was up. I think Aki just never knew anybody who was as respectful towards her as he was, and that meant something to her. Even if it wasn't romantic feelings, she still felt a connection with him through intimate actions, and through the recognition that both of them lacked emotional support.
As mentioned, Aki probably had a bad relationship with her own family. It's interesting that she loved Hatsue so much, definitely more than her own family. And at the very least, Osamu and Nobuyo accepted her for who she was, and acknowledged her as a human being. I think Aki liked Rin quite a bit too, acting as a kind of older sister figure.
Aki did try to escape the house with Osamu, Nobuyo, and Rin, but I'm kind of thinking that it wasn't really her idea. I got the sense that she was just going with what they suggested. She'd never been one of the decision makers of the family.
During the police investigation, the police tried to drive a wedge between her and the family by implying that Hatsue was only taking care of her because she'd received money from Aki's parents. The police also revealed to her that Nobuyo and Osamu were involved in a crime in the past, to scare her away from them. In any case, I think that Aki probably told the police all the she knew in the end.
At the end of the movie, I think we saw Aki going back to the house and seeing if anybody was there. She was dressed quite nicely, so I'm going to guess that she returned to her biologically family, but the fact that she returned to the house implies that she wouldn't forget them.
Shibata Shota
Shota was the little boy. He had basically been with Osamu and Nobuyo ever since he could remember. He knew that they weren't his biological parents, but they were essentially the only constant adults in his life since he could remember. Everything that he knew was taught by Osamu and Nobuyo.
Shota didn't go to school, because he was taught that kids only go to school if they can't study at home. He was also taught that stealing from shops was okay because those goods didn't belong to anybody yet. As I mentioned, Osamu probably just said that to pacify Shota, but he took it to heart, because he was a kid.
He probably started questioning the morality of stealing when the shopkeeper told him to stop getting his sister to steal. It implied that the shopkeeper was allowing him to steal all those years, but he would not allow Shota to teach his craft to others. I guess getting caught for the first time was a bit of a wake up call to Shota.
When Osamu was planning to steal a handbag from a car, Shota was really unhappy, because he was stealing something that already belonged to someone. Not only would Shota not help him, but Shota didn't even give Osamu that high five he craved. But at the same time, Shota didn't know how to do anything other than shoplift. Osamu never taught him much else. When he told Osamu that he had intended to get caught stealing, I think he wanted to get caught so that someone would stop him from stealing. He was hoping that someone would intervene and tell him what to do.
There was that subplot about Shota accepting the other characters as his family. At first, he got upset when Osamu told him to call Rin his little sister. He said he didn't want to include Rin in shoplifting and he wanted it to be just Osamu and him. So I guess at first he was a bit jealous that there was a kid other than him. But he did eventually come around to calling Rin his little sister when Osamu prodded him. I think it wasn't so hard to call Rin his little sister because their relationship was not complex. They were just two kids, two playmates. How complex could their relationship be? As the older brother, he gave her guidance, and they gave each other company.
Shota was a lot more apprehensive about calling Osamu father. He knew that biologically, Osamu was not his father, so that might've been a part of it. I think he was also hesitant to call Osamu father because he had started thinking about how Osamu and Nobuyo came to take care of him. As mentioned, he was thinking about whether Osamu had stolen him from a car like how he'd stolen a purse from someone. And if he'd been forcefully taken from his home, he would've found it difficult to call Osamu father.
Shota was pretty cooperative with the police, because, like, he's a kid. They told him that his family had abandoned him. I don't know whether he believed that at first, but it started to get him thinking, and also, the police officers were pretty kind so he didn't really have a reason not to talk to them.
In the end, he was sent to an orphanage. The officer who spoke with him said that he had to go to school because he would learn things there that he couldn't learn at home, such as how to interact with other people.
After Shota did start living at the orphanage, he maintained a good relationship with Osamu and Nobuyo. He went fishing with Osamu, and it was like nothing happened. When Shota went to visit Nobuyo in prison, she told him the details of how they found him, thus giving him a choice to look for his biological family if he so wished. I don't think Shota made a decision as to what to do right at that moment, but having that option got him thinking.
When he spent time with Osamu at his house, he asked Osamu whether he had truly planned to abandon him. Osamu said that he had. I think Osamu realized that even if he'd tried to explain himself, Shota wouldn't really believe him. What mattered was that the family left him when he was all alone in the hospital.
The next morning, Shota was very quiet and subdued. Osamu tried to ease the relations between them, telling Shota to put the blame on Osamu if he got in trouble, but Shota didn't say much more than a simple agreement.
After Shota boarded the bus, Osamu tried to chase after him, unsuccessfully. Shota turned around, and called out to his father, though silently. I don't believe that Shota truly saw Osamu as his father. I think that what Shota was doing was acknowledging that in the formative years of his life, Osamu had been one of his main caretakers, and he had truly bonded with him.
But I think the truth of the abandonment was too important for him to just overlook, and we know that this movie is not a happy heartwarming movie. And Nobuyo had given him information for him to make a choice. So I think he has that important choice ahead of him, of whether he wants to look for his biological family or not.
Hojo Juri/Yuri/Rin
Rin was a girl who lived in the neighbourhood of the family. One day Osamu and Shota brought her to their home because she looked down, and that's when they discovered that she had been abused. They had planned to return her but upon hearing the absolute carnage going on between the mom and another man, Osamu and Nobuyo turned back.
Initially, Rin had gone by the name Yuri. Two months after she'd joined the family, she finally went on the news for being a missing child. It was revealed that her real name was Juri. After that scare, Rin got a haircut and her name was changed from Yuri to Rin. After a bit of a time skip, we saw that Rin was a lot more talkative with the family, which was nice to see.
It was implied that Nobuyo had also been abused, and Nobuyo used her experience to bond with Rin. She taught her that being hurt was never acceptable, and she also taught her that it was okay to leave the hurtful things in the past.
After getting caught by the police, Rin was returned to her biological family. The news reporters asked her mother whether she'd cooked a dish for Juri to eat, and her mother said yes, but I think it was implied that she very did not. So the news did not cover anything about Juri's parents being abusive.
When Juri returned to her biological family, however, we saw that she was already a different girl. She had a bit more conviction. As her mom was putting on makeup, she touched the scrape on her face, which prompted her mom to yelp out in pain. Her mom told her to say sorry, but Juri didn't do anything. Technically she was being a brat, but I think Juri was just afraid that her mom was do something when she said sorry. Juri's mom also asked her to come close, and promised her new clothes if she did. In the scene in which Hatsue and Nobuyo went clothes shopping for Rin, she said she didn't want the clothes because she didn't want to get hit, and Nobuyo told her that she wouldn't hit her for getting clothes. So now Juri knew that she isn't supposed to get hit for getting clothes, and so she refused to follow her mom's instruction.
The movie ended with Juri playing by herself, and occasionally looking out on the balcony, probably longing for a family that she wouldn't have again.
Themes
Family
Like most found family movies, the idea of being able to choose your family was an obvious theme. Nobuyo said many times that maybe they were happy because they got to choose their family. Of course, it's easier to think that these six people were together because they loved each other and got along.
However, this movie also explored the dark sides of how family came together. Were they together because they got along? Or were they together because it was convenient?
Were Nobuyo and Osamu together because they loved each other, or was it because it was just easier to survive as a couple (financially and emotionally)? In today's economy, it's especially difficult to do anything if you're not in a relationship with someone else. Couples get discounts, benefits, etc.
If anybody came to Hatsue, she probably would've let them stay. In this case, it just so happened that it was these five people that came to her. On the flip side, if Osamu, Nobuyo, or Aki had enough money, would they live with Hatsue? Probably not.
As Osamu mentioned, was it required that every member of the family contribute to justify their role? Why did Shota and Rin have to justify being allowed to be in a family? I don't think they do, but what about the adults?
The police told Shota that family doesn't abandon each other, which is true. But we saw so many instances of families abandoning each other in this movie, as well as in the real world. Hatsue had no one to take care of her, and as far as Aki's parents knew, she was probably living alone. Aki's parents also did not take care of Aki at all. If they really thought she was in Australia, they never tried to reach out, or else they would've known that she wasn't. And if they knew that she wasn't in Australia, they probably didn't extend care to her the way she needed. Rin's parents also neglected her severely.
In addition, people usually have no choice when it comes to family. People don't choose their parents growing up. Shota did not choose to be raised by Osamu and Nobuyo. Is it fair to him that he grew up this way? Should he be thankful to them for raising him, even when they may have taken him forcefully?
Nobuyo and Osamu also had different views of family. Osamu was always trying to get the kids to call him dad. He felt that if they said it out loud, they would become a real family. Nobuyo was not so rigid. She already felt like a mother figure to the kids, and she told Shota that she didn't care that much about names. When the police detectives asked Nobuyo what the kids called her, she said "I wonder..." without answering. She'd never thought of titles because they never mattered to her. She knew that just because a woman gave birth didn't mean that she was a mother. But some people did not see it that way.
There are a lot of questions here that will always remained unanswered. There is no universal definition for family, and that is very obvious when we consider how different cultures treat family.
Short-sightedness in poverty
The family lived in extreme poverty. We saw how Osamu, Nobuyo, and Aki were struggling in their jobs. Because the family lived in poverty, they had to be short sighted.
When Hatsue died, Osamu instructed the kids that they could not bring her up again. They had to learn to move on in order to survive. All of the characters had to learn to move on from the past for their own mental health and well-being.
I doubt that Hatsue cared anymore about her husband's infidelity. If she was, she wouldn't have lived to be this old. She'd be raging day in and day out about her husband leaving her. Frankly she only brought up her husband for financial reasons, whether it was the pension, or visiting his son for the money.
Osamu and Nobuyo's past was a huge surprise, as we never would've thought that they were involved in the death of another person. But they had to move on from it in order to survive. They were more concerned with making money to survive.
Aki's past was painful for her as well. She looked like a very happy young girl, but knowing how different she was from her biological family, I can see how she would've suffered being around them. She probably always felt inferior compared to how prim and proper her parents and sister were.
Shota's past was blocked off from him through no choice of his own. There was a chance that his family were gamblers, considering he was left in the car in the parking lot of a pachinko parlour, but we don't know that. Shota never had that chance to know them. And since he was living in poverty, he couldn't keep dreaming of his biological parents because those dreams couldn't keep him alive.
Rin's situation was similar to Aki in that it was painful for her to think of her biological family. She'd never been cared for and cherished like she was in the family. I remember when Rin got her haircut, everybody was raving about how cute she looked. She never would've gotten that from her mother.
Stealing
Shota had a moral dilemma about stealing during the movie. He truly believed that it was okay to steal from shops because those things did not belong to anybody yet.
But Osamu stole for survival. When he hurt his leg, he stole bigger things because he needed to make up for the money he wouldn't earn from his job. When he stole the purse from the car, he saw a huge opportunity that he couldn't let go of. That bag was probably worth tons of money, and he just couldn't let that go. This went against Shota's core beliefs, that he thought Osamu believed in as well.
Why did the shopkeeper let Shota steal from him again and again? Perhaps the shopkeeper thought that it was just a bad habit that Shota would grow out from. And he probably had set aside a budget for kids stealing things from him. But the shopkeeper would not let Shota teach Rin to steal, which was interesting. He could let Shota have that bad habit but he would not let him spread it to others.
Public image
What was presented on the news was extremely different from what we saw of the family.
The most obvious example was related to Juri/Rin. When Juri had gone missing and her parents had not reported her disappearance for two months, the news did not at all talk about how Juri's mom was abusive. And after Juri was returned, the reporters were trying to paint it as a loving mother glad to have her daughter back, asking if she'd cooked for Juri.
Osamu and Nobuyo was painted as vicious murderers even though they had been cleared by the courts of self defense. Knowing Osamu and Nobuyo, it was easy for me to see that if Osamu and Nobuyo were faced with a violent man, they would react in kind and try to hide the evidence because the law did not work for people who were like them.
The entire story of six people living in Hatsue's house was probably sensationalized by the media. We saw a reporter in front of the house hyping up the mystery. When in reality, it was six people who were lonely or had nowhere to live finding company in that house.
We just saw the merits of various things with a negative reputation.
For example, all those people living under Hatsue's roof was seen as creepy and weird, but Hatsue was the only person who gave those people shelter when they would not have been able to find it elsewhere.
Aki worked at a hostess bar, which was seen as bad and scandalous. But Aki and 4 ban-san found intimacy and a connection in that place, when they would probably be shunned in real life, Aki for being a hostess, and 4 ban-san for being a client as well as someone who probably has issues with socialization.
Justice system
In this movie, we saw instances when the justice system was not able to address the needs of people.
They tried to get each of the characters to open up by revealing their secrets, and by pointing out all the negatives of why the others were bad and why the family was bad.
Rin was obviously more cared for in the family than she was with her biological mom, and yet the justice system saw her being returned to her biological mom was the right thing. Nobuyo challenged the police on this, and instead, the police detectives attacked her inability to have children.
Shota was sent to an orphanage, where he'd live with six other kids and would go to school. While going to school would be good for him because he would learn to socialize, would he get the love and care he needed in the foster home? That's an awful lot of kids in one house.
Overall
This was a good movie. I really like when movies explore themes in depth, and I prefer that to movies who explore a lot of themes but only superficially.
The story was unique, especially the fact that this didn't end up being the heartwarming happy movie that I thought it would be. I really like that it challenged our views of many things.