Kaho as Chika Koda, Suzu Hirose as Suzu Asano, Haruka Ayase as Sachi Koda and Masami Nagasawa as Yoshino Koda in Our Little Sister.
Hirokazu Kore-eda's adaptation of Yoshida Akimi's popular serialized josei (or women's) manga Umimachi Diary (Our Little Sister) is about three very different but close adult sisters who adopt a fourth – their younger half-sister. They live together in the old family homestead and scenes revolve around the preparation and sharing of meals. It's subdued, at times even too leisurely, but the film and its characters are luminous, especially lead Ayase Haruka. The subject matter of family ties and ordinary lives observed through the elliptical passage of seasons will garner comparisons to a contemporary Yasujiro Ozu, though it's as much like work by Jane Austen or Louisa May Alcott.
Nathalie Atkinson