Rating: NR | Runtime: 123 minutes
Release Date: September 9th, 2022 (Japan) / August 11th, 2023 (USA)
Studio: Elephant House / Oscilloscope Laboratories
Director(s): Kôji Fukada
Writer(s): Kôji Fukada / Akiko Yano (song)

But I can’t forgive you.

When tragedy strikes the Osawa family on a day marked for celebration, neither Taeko (Fumino Kimura) nor Jirô (Kento Nagayama) quite knows what to do. They should be able to grieve together. They should be able to look into each other’s eyes. And yet they simply stare off into the distance, going through motions as numb, hollow husks searching for some sign of life while trying to avoid showing too much.

Because it’s difficult to know exactly where they stand. Despite being married for a year now, they still find themselves at a distance due to the circumstances surrounding their relationship. Taeko was married once before and had a six-year-old son (Tetta Shimada’s Keita) before Park (Atom Sunada) ran away. Jirô was engaged (to Hirona Yamazaki’s Yamazaki) when he began his affair with her. Add the fact that his parents (Misuzu Kanno’s Myoe and, especially, Tomorô Taguchi’s Makoto) can’t quite wrap their heads around their son marrying a divorcee and forcing them to be grandparents to a grandchild that “isn’t theirs” and you can begin to see how fragile things already were.

In another filmmaker’s hands, Love Life would probably be full of fireworks as this married couple comes to grips with what happened by distancing themselves even further while moving closer to those former loves from their pasts. This would probably be the case if it was set in many places besides Japan too. But that’s what makes Kôji Fukada’s drama so powerful. The silences where steely frustrations and unavoidable embarrassment are left unsaid really speak to the struggle these characters face moving forward. Because everything intimated and refuted about their love does exist. And how they react to those truths could shatter everything they’ve built.

So, don’t expect things to get blown out of proportion. Don’t assume Park or Yamazaki are going to use the situation to get back together with Taeko and Jirô respectively. Jealousy isn’t what Fukada is interested in pursuing. He’s focusing upon forgiveness instead. Not for the other’s transgressions or unspoken feelings, but for themselves. Can Taeko forgive herself for stopping to look for Park? Can Jirô forgive himself for breaking Yamazaki’s heart? Can their shared nightmarish plight get Makoto and Myoe to finally realize the pettiness of their cold shoulder to support the family given to them rather than lament the loss of the one they always wanted?

And there’s the need to forgive themselves for the spark to this emotional upheaval. Taeko blames herself. Jirô feels guilty for selfishly breathing a sigh of relief when he should have been mourning. The circumstances are obviously heightened, but the result is a resonant and universal sense of what living with and loving someone else entails. It’s never easy. It’s always complicated. And you will ultimately make mistakes. But the thing you cannot do is run from the inevitable fallout or avoid the truths that exist in your heart. Because it’s not about what you did to let shame prevent you from looking your partner in the eyes. It’s about looking there anyway.

Kimura shines in the lead role. Her strength to call out Jirô’s father when he goes too far or push Park for answers when he suddenly comes back into her life mixes with a justified anger for having to deal with both at all that provides a palpable baseline for who she is and the decisions she’ll soon make. Because Taeko will do anything for the people she loves. She doesn’t absorb these slights for herself, but to protect those who are inevitably caught in the crossfire through no fault of their own (Keita as a symbol of her former marriage, Park as a deaf Korean immigrant, etc.). It’s a commendable feature of her love and an unfortunate opening that leaves her vulnerable.

The film is a series of events wherein Taeko and Jirô are let down by each other and themselves. It’s about the ways in which they contort themselves so as not to actually talk about what has happened or what they’re truly feeling—leaving them susceptible to being hurt further by the need to fill in the blanks, conjuring their own assumptions instead. They turn away rather than towards to confront their fears elsewhere, leaving their genuine love in a purgatory that may never relinquish it. The question is therefore whether they can remember they’re no longer alone.

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The cast of LOVE LIFE; courtesy of Oscilloscope.