This
will be one of the most wrenching O. Henry-esque stories most viewers could
ever hope to see. When an over-achieving father learns his six year old son was
switched at birth, he assumes biology trumps their parental bond. However, exchanging children proves to be far
more complicated than he expects in Hirokazu Kore-eda’s Like Father, Like Son (trailer here), which opens this
Friday in New York.
The
driven Ryota Nonomiya has always excelled at everything, except maybe
parenting. He always assumed his gentle
son Keita simply took after his passive wife, Midori. However, when their maternity hospital
announces the mistake (deliberately caused by a mentally disturbed nurse),
everything suddenly makes sense to him.
Initially, he agrees to meet the Saikis, a big, sloppily affectionate
working class family, along with his biological son, Ryusei, ostensibly adopting
a wait-and-see attitude. Yet, his wife
can tell he has already made up his mind and is constitutionally incapable of
protesting.
You
might think Ryota Nonomiya and his severe father are vampires, considering
their preoccupation with mere blood. Of
course, emotional bonds are not so easily severed. To make matters worse, he
starts to wonder if the Saikis got the better end of the deal. Frankly, many
parents will find it absolutely flummoxing the Nonomiyas could ever let go of a
sweet-tempered moppet like Keita, but Kore-eda’s screenplay is examining and to
an extent critiquing attitudes rooted in a very specific cultural context
(forthcoming DreamWorks remake notwithstanding). Without question, he advocates greater
emphasis on nurture over nature, in just about every sense.
As
his near namesake, young Keita Ninomiya is a major reason why Like Father is so massively
poignant. He is ridiculously cute, but
also devastatingly effective in his big dramatic scenes. Likewise, despite Midori’s
submissive nature (which might set some western viewers’ teeth on edge), Machiko
Ono’s arrestingly sensitive performance is deeply affecting. In contrast, Masaharu
Fukuyama is rigorously disciplined as the coolly detached Nonomiya, earning his
payoff the hard way. To their credit
(and that of Kore-eda), the Saikis are also given real heft and dimension by
Lily Franky and Yoko Maki, rather than serving as anti-Nonomiya strawmen.