RENOIR

(director/writer: Chie Hayakawa; cinematographer:
Hideho Urata; editor: Anne Klotz; music:Rémi Boubal; cast: Yuri Suzuki (Fuki Okita), Lily Franky (Keiji Okita), Hikari Ishida (Utako Okita), Ayumi Nakajima (Toru Omaezaki), Yumi Kawai (Kuriko Kila), Ryota Bando (Kaoru Hamono); Runtime: 114; MPAA Rating: NR; producers: Jason Gray, Keisuke Konishi, Christophe Bruncher, Fran Borgia; Film Movement; 2025-Japan-France-Singapore-Philippines-Indonesia-Qatar-in Japanese)

“A slow-moving coming-of-age film.”

Reviewed by Dennis Schwartz

Japanese filmmaker Chie Hayakawa (“Plan 75”) directs & writes this morbid family drama set in 1987 in Tokyo. The energetic 11-year-old Fuki (Yuri Suzuki) learns that her ailing dad Keiji (Lily Franky) has terminal cancer. Her mom, Utako (Hikari Ishida), keeps her job but has less time to look after the active and needy youngster because she takes care of her husband.

Two subplots go nowhere of Fuki showing some minor difficulties when unsupervised. In one of them the kid writes for a class assignment an essay of dreaming she was murdered, which only made the grim film darker but not any better. In the other, Fuki tries out her telepathic skills in the occult with her classmates.

It’s a slow-moving coming-of-age film that’s overlong, not too entertaining, and says nothing you didn’t know already about dealing with grief. But the splendid sensitive performance by Yuri Suzuki makes the film watchable.

It played at the Cannes Film Festival.

REVIEWED ON 6/6/2026  GRADE: C+
dennisschwartzreviews.com