Like Father, Like Son (2013)

Hirokazu Koreeda is one of the contemporary directors I have plenty of respect for; his films show a tender attention to ordinary life and the general mood is that of hope and openness. Like Father, Like Son is a characteristic film in many ways - Koreeda has made several films about family life - but still, it had some surprising flaws. Whereas other Koreeda films are only loosly tied to a story, in this film, the story comes to be central in a way I find problematic. Two families receive the news that their children have been switched in the hospital when the children were born. The parents, coming from very different social backgrounds, start to contemplate "switching back" and this brings several deep-going conflicts to the surface. We never really get an understanding for why such an arrangement occurs as a possibility on the radar, it just does. This is perhaps the major flaw. The story is also unnecessarily centered on dramatic turns and peaks (not exactly tear-wringing clashes and resolutions but still - more on the conventional side), and this is not at all characteristic for Koreeda's films. What still speaks for the film is its examination of class and how class is constructed in how people relate to place. One example of this is an arranged meeting between the two families. The place is some sort of fast food parlor with a section for toys. The parents of one of the kids remain distant and awkward; they have good manners and try to keep things 'polite'. The father of the other kid talks and plays with the rambunctious kids; he moves about while the other parents shyly watching him. Koreeda shows a keen interest for this kind of situation and it is in these quiet, understated moments where nothing particular happens that the film is at its best.

The question about biological kinship is treated delicately and sympathetically: the point seems to be that concerns about biological kinship arise within a social setting in which the question already has a certain point, it comes from a certain place, it is expressed within tensions and conflicts; there is no fundamental level at play here. In this case, the conflicts revolve around the father who works too much and who is disappointed about his 'unambitious' kid. This observations are good but the problem in the film - which was, by the way, beautifully filmed - was that it tended to play on the obvious. More than before, Koreeda appeared to be in the business of 'making points'. And in my view, that's never a good thing. Still, what I liked about Like Father, Like Son is the way people's interaction is highlighted in a way that is the opposite of cynical. It is as if Koreeda always has an eye for the openings, the possibilities, the way a problem may not be ineluctable.