The Longing Review: Gentle Redemption Tale

Toshizo Fujiwara directs and stars in The Longing, a gentle realist drama tackling familiar themes of offender rehabilitation and second chances.

Based on Fujiwara’s play of the same name, the film concerns young offender Yuto (Daiki Ido) as he picks up the pieces of his life after time inside. His shot at a fresh start comes in the form of a new job opportunity at the okonomiyaki restaurant of middle-aged fellow ex-con Hiro (Fujiwara) and his wife Sono (Rino Tsuneishi), whose past and present struggles will intersect with his own. As he readjusts to life in his hometown of Osaka, Yuto is exposed to the same dangers that dragged him down in the first place, namely booze, drugs and unsavoury acquaintances, his future hanging in the balance.

Yuto’s new profession is a potent manifestation of his status at the bottom of the social scale, at least to those unused to Japan’s service culture, where the customer isn’t just king, but God. We are only given a glimpse of his life before detention in the film’s prologue, so the majority of his behaviour on screen is defined by servitude and humility, his utterances frequently punctuated by apologies, statements of gratitude and bows of submission. He isn’t the only one with such minimal dialogue, as co-screenwriters Fujiwara and Rin Mikuni leave the mystery of the past and uncertainty of the future to be conveyed by gestures and silences.

Among the half-spoken truths that impact the central triad is Hiro and Sono’s difficulty conceiving a child. The question of surrogacy in various forms hovers over the film; the couple’s dedication to reforming young men may seem an obvious outlet for Sono’s maternal yearnings, but the later-revealed death of Hiro’s younger brother suggests Yuto’s presence has a different significance to the husband. The local community doesn’t share their desire to rehabilitate ne’er-do-wells like Yuto, while Sono’s close circle expresses concern about the thought of raising a child in such an environment. It’s also implied that Hiro is more invested in Yuto than his own hypothetical offspring. All the gaps in our characters’ existences, including that left by Yuto’s abusive parents, are filled awkwardly, like jigsaw pieces that require a bit too much force to fit.

The quiet gentleness of the film’s script is reflected in its visual language, which offers little variation on the scrappy handheld social-realist tradition but is nonetheless well-crafted. Working on a tight budget, cinematographer Mamoru Gomi makes use of practical lighting and the breathtaking Osaka sky to give The Longing a distinctive fiery sheen. It’s a colour scheme so completely enveloping that it can’t be ignored – is this Yuto’s sunrise or sunset, the dying embers of youth or the ignition of new passion, new life?

Thanks to the minimalist dialogue and the cast’s restrained performances, such questions are only obliquely answered. Ido is a convincing damaged teen, his cold stare hiding the inner turmoil that comes out in sharp, full-body bursts. The young man’s taciturn attitude is mirrored by Fujiwara’s calm and forgiving Hiro, leaving the majority of the film’s emotional heft to Tsuneishi. Her character’s openness amid the guarded masculinity of Yuto and Hiro is moving, allowing the film’s thematic underbelly to finally come to the fore via her heartfelt monologue in its climax.

When you’re this deep into awards season, a film as gentle and measured as Fujiwara’s is a welcome reprieve from Hollywood’s excesses. Its insubstantiality is a feature, not a bug; those fundamental questions concerning wasted youth, broken families and the possibility of redemption are at best only partially answered, and without fanfare or melodrama. The Longing is not a radical film, but it is an honest one.

The Longing premiered at the Berlin Film Festival on February 15-23, 2025. Read our Berlin Film Festival reviews!