Stories about a child seeking reconciliation with a parent have been with us since nineteen-dickidee-dee and those dramas are usually heightened for cinematic purposes; Still Walking has the refreshing approach of stubbornly rooting its story in realism.
On the anniversary of his older brother's death, Ryo (Hiroshi Abe) returns to his family home to spend the weekend with his mother (Kirin Kiki) and his father Kyohei (Yoshio Harada), a doctor on the cusp of retirement. Because he never followed his father into medicine, because he's married a widow with a young son and, most importantly, because he is racked with guilt over the death of his older brother, Junpei (who heroically died while trying to save a kid from drowning), there's an air of tension between Ryo and his parents. As the weekend plays out, that tension threatens to come to a head.
On the surface there's not a lot going on in Still Walking. People sit. People talk. People eat. Kids run around being a nuisance. But, as in life, the beauty is in the detail. Every character feels like a real person - it's more than that: they feel like someone you know. Kyohei is a proud man and respected in the neighbourhood and despite his age he is still working, still walking. He's aloof, moving through the house unnoticed and ignoring his guests. He can be petty too: he gets angry when the grandchildren refer to the house as 'Grandma's' since it was his hard work that built it. Ryo can't stand his father's cold attitude but is becoming more like him every day: he sleepwalks through his marriage and lies to his wife about upcoming jobs (he restores paintings). Ryo's mother, still reeling from Junpei's death, invites the kid he saved, now grown up, to the house every year and revels in being nasty to him. Director Koreeda's observational skills are pitch perfect - he knows what it is to be human, warts and all. All of this works. Still Walking is a slow burner that's building to a showdown.
That showdown, however, never comes. Or it doesn't come the way its expected to. Some may revel in that the drama sticks close to realism and doesn't give in to the temptation to heighten emotions for a tacked on climax. It plays out how it would play out in life - no big resolution. This can be quite frustrating, though - robbing an audience of an emotional whack after investing time in a deliberate build up.
