“A poetic ode to family and the often challenging elements that bind us together.”

A good film can have quite a bit in common with a good novel: an immersive experience where a simple but poetic story unfolds gradually, in which every detail is outlined, and the audience has the chance to observe and find their own interpretation in places where others might not look. When it comes to literary works, Maha Harada is as close to an expert as we can find, since she has been one of Japan’s most celebrated novelists over the past few decades, her works cherished across various communities. However, after having written the screenplays to a few adaptations of her novels, Harada steps behind the camera herself, taking on the role of director for In My Father’s Room, a slow-burning drama about the lengths we will go to when revisiting the uncomfortable parts of our past in an effort to find answers to some of life’s more challenging questions. The film follows Satomi, a mild-mannered woman who works at an art museum, quietly observing the visitors as they debate and ponder the nature of the works they are seeing, which serves as a good distraction from her lonely personal life. She learns that her recently deceased father (with whom she had a contentious relationship) had visited the museum shortly before his death. This leads her to discover as much as she can about a man who she was always told abandoned his family, but who actually had his own burdens that forced him to drift away as time went on. A film that carries an enormous weight in terms of its emotions, but consistently challenges us to look deeper than the surface, In My Father’s Room is a poetic ode to family and the often challenging elements that bind us together.

There is a staggering amount of thematic ground being covered throughout In My Father’s Room, which certainly seems to be offering much more than it promised at the outset. Evidently, this is the result of a novelist (particularly one with several years of experience and many successful works to her name) being granted the opportunity to leap over into a different medium. The primary theme that guides this film forward and makes it such a wonderfully interesting work is also the simplest: the ongoing search for human connection, the desire to find those in our lives, whether family, friends or simply strangers who we come across in our day-to-day routine, and form some kind of bond with them, even if only momentarily. The protagonist of this film is a profoundly lonely young woman whose entire raison d’être is to serve those who need insights and advice about the art they are presented with, only for her to reveal herself to be an expert on formal explanations of art, but without the necessary skills to make meaningful connections beyond these small interactions. Throughout the film, Harada examines Satomi’s difficult relationship with her parents – her mother is self-absorbed to the point where she feels like more of a casual friend, and her father died without ever truly getting to know his daughter. While we initially expect the film to be about her efforts to reconcile her own complex feelings about these relationships, it soon becomes clear that there is much more lingering beneath the surface than initially meets the eye. This is where the film thrives, exploring Satomi’s attempts to understand herself by letting go of the regrets she carries from the past, which can only occur through addressing the active curiosity and uncomfortable reality that she previously felt compelled to suppress.

To evoke some of the complicated emotions that form the foundation of In My Father’s Room, the director focuses on authenticity more than anything else. Films about tense familial relationships and the difficult process of working through personal challenges relating to loneliness and the desire to find a place in the world tend to be quite melodramatic. This is clearly not something that interests Harada, who is committed to maintaining her clear and careful approach to meaningful storytelling. It is obvious that she is being guided by her literary roots, since the film unfolds like a poignant novel, each scene a brief episode from Satomi’s daily life built around small clues and details that may seem arbitrary, but ultimately prove to be important as the story progresses. These details have a cumulative effect that underlines the film’s precise and direct approach to looking at her routine as something that brings order and comfort to her life, but is very restrictive when it comes to dealing with existential quandaries that she soon realizes she cannot ignore. The film does address themes like family struggles, loneliness and mortality, but it rarely seems interested in looking at them from the obvious perspective. Instead, the most important moments are those delivered in a subtle, quiet key – a bowl of food being served, a moment spent waiting at a bus stop, or the discovery of a brief poem in the final moments, when every theme that has populated the previous two hours can be summarized in only three sentences. It’s a fascinating and deeply moving film that may proceed at a slower and more meditative pace, but for reasons that become increasingly clear as the film progresses and we see the extent to which Harada is focused on creating something emotionally resonant above all else.

In My Father’s Room is a wonderfully engaging look at the human condition, crafted by an artist who is technically a newcomer to this particular medium, but who still comes fully prepared as a result of decades of extraordinary written work, which has equipped her with the skill and nuance required to tackle some intimidating but fascinating themes. There are moments where we feel like the film is at risk of succumbing to convention, especially since it is something of a cliché to build a story around the irony of discovering so much about a loved one’s life only after their death. But in Harada’s capable hands this goes from a potentially trite excuse for overdone emotions to a far more effective drama, in which every emotion is realistic and feels entirely earned, which is not easy to accomplish when handling these haunting ideas. The film is anchored by a wonderful performance by Yû Aoi, who has the responsibility to make us fully connect with Satomi, particularly since so much of the role is internal and requires an actor with the skill and introspection to bring these subtle themes to life. She gives a genuine depiction of a character who is learning to look beyond the life she has made for herself and realizing that there is always more to be discovered if she steps outside of her comfort zone and embraces some difficult emotions. Beautifully poetic and deeply moving, while also addressing some hard truths about loneliness and the yearning for connection, In My Father’s Room is the rare film that manages to be both intimate and sprawling, with a sincerity that cannot be manufactured and an attention to detail that reveals so much about these characters and the worlds they inhabit. It may not have the most concrete conclusion; still, like many good books, we are given the ending the story and its characters need, rather than the one that we would expect. In both concept and style, Harada achieves something truly striking with this captivating examination of humanity and its many peculiar surprises.