Shoplifters(2018)

I might have watched this film in 2018 when it came out, but I definitely didn’t have the capacity to appreciate it then. This is a moving and complicated story about being misfits in Japan: what society does to them, how they cope, and what the consequences are.

I think for a long time, perhaps the answer most stories produce to being misfits is to find your chosen family. I should know because I ate all of it up. Shoplifters wants to remind you that it’s not so simple. Yes, you can have a lot of genuine love and affection for the people you find, but love alone does not give you the capacity to care for one another well. If you are lucky, you may pick it up as you learn how to survive, but not everyone is, and that stunted sense of caregiving can bleed into all their relationships.

Osamu loved Shota like his own son, but still chose to abandon him when Shota got caught stealing. Nobuyo wished she could give Lin all the love in the world through her hugs, but eventually could not protect her from being returned to her abusive family. Everyone loved Hatsue like their real grandma, but no one knew how to tell her, I wonder if in her last moments there were parts of her that still wondered if they stuck with her for her pension. And for Aki, she had to hear from an interrogator the ugliest version of her grandmother’s motivations for inviting her to move in, and she’ll never have the opportunity ask Hatsue herself whether that’s true. 

They were always on the run, fearing one another was only out for themselves, never allowing themselves time to sit with who they've become and what they've come to mean for each other.

The comforting part is that as viewers we can all see how real their love for each other is, even when they don't necessarily know it themselves, as it must be with our own chosen families. For us, let's remember to tell them.