Rent Tokyo Sonata (2008)

Keeping Up Appearances - Tokyo Sonata review by griggs

There’s a particular kind of dread that doesn’t need ghosts: the quiet panic of a paycheque vanishing, and the daily commute performed out of habit. Tokyo Sonata finds Kiyoshi Kurosawa swapping Cure/ Pulse chills for the more familiar horror of status and shame.

A salaryman loses his job and can’t say it out loud, so he keeps leaving the house like nothing’s changed. Teruyuki Kagawa plays Ryuhei as a man handcuffed to pride, while Kyoko Koizumi’s Megumi tries to keep the family upright on instinct and fatigue. The sons split too: one lunges for a grand escape, the other for a quieter exit.

The film is darkly funny in a way that stings — watching routine turn into theatre, and dignity into a costume you can’t take off. Midway, Kurosawa steers into a sudden, unsettling detour that makes the social rules look faintly ridiculous.

It slightly loosens its grip when it follows every thread, but the final piano passage lands with surprising clarity. Human, sharp, and quietly bruising — a family resetting in real time.

A cracking little gem! - Tokyo Sonata review by Colin Taylor

A cracking little gem of a film and well worth watching. Not only does the life of the unemployed man inevitably fall to pieces, but all of those around him too because of his actions. Suburban life is shown as limiting and claustrophobic, dehumanising and demoralising those who live within it( interesting though to see a depiction of grubby backstreet Tokyo ).

The film is about making good choices to escape life's pressures, and finding your own way. And if that sounds naff, it isn't; in the hands of Hollywood this script/film would be nigh on unwatchable, but in Kurosawa's hands its a moving and beautiful redemptive tale!

Two different films in one. - Tokyo Sonata review by 'Clx2'

I quite enjoyed the first half of this film. However, just over halfway through, there are some utterly bizarre twists in the plotline, which makes it feel like you've strayed into a completely different film altogether. It seems like the writer couldn't work how to finish the plot within the confines that had already been set up, so veers off in a totally different direction. All in all, a very odd film.