What makes up a family? Is it the people who share your DNA? Your surname? Is it people you plan things with? Is it the people who show up at meal time? At holiday time? Is it the people who attend your little league games, reality TV shows, and parole hearings? Or is it the set of people who are just, you know, there? Let’s explore the question in exquisite detail, shall we?
The Shibatas are a very small-time crime family. Father Osamu (Lily Franky), mother Nobuyo (Sakura Andô), and son Shotu (Kairi Jyo) like to visit the grocery store for some light thieving. They have a coordinated system down pat. Isn’t it great when families do things together? Uh oh, Shotu has a tell – although it looks more like a pre-game ritual—wait; are there “tells” in thieving? Guess so. Hope the shopkeepers don’t cotton on. Osamu and Shotu are the ring leaders in unlawfulness, but the whole family likes to kick in with scamming money including grandma (Kirin Kiki). The only one among them who seems to generate income legitimately is Nobuyo’s sister Aki (Mayu Matsuoka). Aki makes money undressing for men on the other side of a glass partition.
Wow, this bunch is all kinds of screwed up, huh? But they’re all good natured, which makes our Shibata spying feel more like “The Simpsons” than The Corleones. And one day on the home from grocery lifting, the fam spots Yuri (Miyu Sasaki), a five-year-old girl abandoned to the cold on her neglectful mother’s semi-enclosed porch. Feeling for the girl, Osamu invites her to dinner … and Yuri never leaves. Hey, is that technically small-time theft as well?
As much as anything else, Shoplifters is a study in parenting. Sure enough, Yuri soon learns the sticky-fingered ways of her liberators. She takes to being a Shibata with little hesitation. Ummm, so, yeah, technically, isn’t collecting a small child and teaching her to be a thief something bad? Isn’t that a scenario straight out of Oliver Twist? But, and this is a big but, the Shibatas offer food and love and patience and understanding. They also encourage growth and knowledge. Are these not off-setting factors? And how off-setting exactly? Wouldn’t we rather see Yuri raised by
caring, nurturing petty criminals than banished to a lanai prison by a personified blob?
If Yuri’s were the only story this film explored and questioned, Shoplifters would probably be worth the effort, but there is so much more here – Osamu has a story and Nobuyo has a story and Aki has a story and grandma has a story. I guessed Shotu’s story, but it was only after two or three smaller plot points I didn’t see coming. This is a film you won’t really guess fully until it’s over, and even then you might have to piece a few things together in retrospect. Yet the question/theme of the film remains: what is family? And how do you know when you have the right one? It’s not as easily answered as you suspect.
♪I can’t stop this stealing
Deep in Dollar Tree
Girl, you just don’t realize
What’s in Aisle 3
When I pilfer
With these fists so tight
Then you signal
That it is all right
I-I-I-I-I
I’m hooked on the stealing
I’m high on relieving
And making items “free” ♫
Rated R, 121 Minutes
Director: Hirokazu Koreeda
Writer: Hirokazu Koreeda
Genre: Our screwed present
Person most likely to enjoy this film: Those who like asking, “Why?”
Person least likely to enjoy the film: Deadbeat ‘rents
♪ Parody Inspired by “Hooked on a Feeling”
