Setsuko Hara's husband is dead and his old college friends gather, as they often do anyway. The widow's daughter, Yôko Tsukasa, is 24, which means it's time she married. So they pick out a candidate, Keiji Sada. Only she's not interested, because she feels her mother needs her.
Well, we've seen this before in Ozu movies. In LATE SPRING, it was Miss Hara's turn to be a stubborn daughter worried about a widowed parent. Now, eleven years later, she's the widowed parent with a stubborn daughter. However, this one is pretty much as straight a comedy as Ozu turned out after the War, so just as it begins with a funeral, we can be certain it will end with a wedding. There are remarks made that are clearly asides to the audience, like every waitress and bartender apologizing for the delay in service, and the three friends who realize they need to get Miss Hara remarried and choose one of their number as the groom. Matters grow more confused, people are told about things that haven't been done, and it's the turn of Mariko Okada, as Miss Tsukasa's friend to whom she's not talking, to drag everyone together and get some straight answers out of them... and to lug the drunken men to her father's sushi joint, because he can use the business.
It's warm and funny and familiar to anyone who's seen Ozu's movies. It makes me wish I had friends and family like that.
Well, we've seen this before in Ozu movies. In LATE SPRING, it was Miss Hara's turn to be a stubborn daughter worried about a widowed parent. Now, eleven years later, she's the widowed parent with a stubborn daughter. However, this one is pretty much as straight a comedy as Ozu turned out after the War, so just as it begins with a funeral, we can be certain it will end with a wedding. There are remarks made that are clearly asides to the audience, like every waitress and bartender apologizing for the delay in service, and the three friends who realize they need to get Miss Hara remarried and choose one of their number as the groom. Matters grow more confused, people are told about things that haven't been done, and it's the turn of Mariko Okada, as Miss Tsukasa's friend to whom she's not talking, to drag everyone together and get some straight answers out of them... and to lug the drunken men to her father's sushi joint, because he can use the business.
It's warm and funny and familiar to anyone who's seen Ozu's movies. It makes me wish I had friends and family like that.