Japanese filmmaker Ryūsuke Hamaguchi is back. The director of the Oscar-winning Drive My Car, a film of unprecedented crossover success for a movie about a widower quietly prepping a production of Uncle Vanya, took three years between his previous work, Evil Does Not Exist, and the re-edited version, Gift, to deliver All Of A Sudden. With a new trailer, Hamaguchi reminds fans and admirers that he isn’t changing his gentle, tight-lipped, and life-affirming ways.
All Of A Sudden follows Marie-Lou (Virginie Efira), a nursing home director, trying to reinvent elderly care with some wild new techniques, such as “listening and respecting residents’ dignity,” per the synopsis from Neon. When her staff resists, she turns to a Japanese theater director named Mari (Tao Okamoto), who’s fighting cancer and changes Marie-Lou’s perspective on life, friendship, and care.
Based on the non-fiction book You And I – The Illness Suddenly Get Worse by Makiko Miyano and Maho Isono, All Of A Sudden premiered to raves at Cannes in May, where stars Efira and Okamoto shared the award for Best Actress. It’s currently Japan’s selection for the Best International Feature Film at next year’s Oscars. Should the film win, it would mark Hamaguchi’s second Oscar in that category. It certainly seems more Oscar-friendly than the fatalistic corporate encroachment drama, Evil Does Not Exist.
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