Odagiri Joe and Aoi Yu star in this film as lonely adults with unspeakable stories of on another. The director Yamashita Nobuhiro, who has often focused on the lives of Japanese youth’s in such films as Linda Linda Linda, My Back Page, and Tamako in Moratorium, has emerged as one of Japan’s most promising young filmmakers. Shiraiwa is a lonesome man in his 40s who returns to his hometown after a divorce and decides to attend a vocational school. Satoshi is a cheerful but eccentric woman who works at a theme park in the daytime and at a bar as a hostess at night. Both of them represent lonely people who have a hard time surviving in the world. Their monotonous lives between home and school or between home and the bar are suddenly disrupted by their painful pasts. A man and a woman, devastated by pressure and stress, serve as portraits of today’s youth. Yamashita’s view of adult life materialized in a television drama series entitled Shinya Shokudo, but takes an obvious and deliberate step forward in this film. (Minah JEONG)