Instead it’s a layered and effective piece of cinema that explores what it is to be a parent, what it is to be a child, and that ponders where exactly the love bonds that tie us together come from, and how permanent and unconditional they really are. It’s a story about being human, in a broad sense, whose particulars involve a successful young couple named Ryota and Midori (Masaharu Fukuyama and Machiko Ono) who find out that their six-year-old son, Keita (Keita Ninomiya), was actually switched at birth with another child in the country hospital where he was delivered, and that he’s not really their son at all. What this means is that Ryota and Midori need to meet with the other couple (Rirî Furankî and Yôko Maki) who mistakenly took home their biological son, Ryusei (Shôgen Hwang), set up some sort of program where both sets of parents can meet their long-lost progeny, and then all four have to come to some sort of decision as to whether they’re going to stick with the kid they’ve been raising as their own for six years, or swap them out for the one that actually shares their blood.
I know what you’re thinking, and you’re right. This movie is emotional as shit.
As if a story where two sets of parents have to choose between the kid who they’ve grown to love and the kid who they should naturally love isn’t engaging enough on its surface, Koreeda’s script is so effective at developing every character into three-dimensional beings, at giving them conflicting personalities and motivations, that a plot that’s easy to quickly summarize then manages to develop into an even more complex drama where every little thing any of the characters says or does is significant enough to be dissected and interpreted, and stakes that really only exist in the emotional realm suddenly develop into matters of life or death as far as the depth with which you feel them is concerned. The game of cat and cat and mouse and mouse begins when the two couples first meet and get their kids together at one of those fun center places that has slides and ball pits, and it turns into a more tangled web as their meetings multiply. With just a couple of carefully constructed scenes, Like Father, Like Son goes from being a movie whose main drama is built around the question of whether or not a six-year-old can get good enough at the piano to earn his father’s approval to being an emotional time bomb that you’re not convinced anyone’s relationships or state of emotional well-being are going to be able to survive.
A big reason the film is so effective is the obviously master-level craftsmanship of Koreeda’s writing and directing. His approach to handling human drama is a subtle one that understands real tension comes from a character trying their best to stifle the emotions that are bubbling up and threatening to break them down, and not from showy exclamations of pain that play as being theatrical more so than they play as being real-life situations that are relatable. The cinematography on display throughout is first-rate as well. We get so many scenes that exist as little more than just people sitting around in apartments and talking when you see them on paper, and they all get elevated through the use of windows and reflections and other aesthetic trickery in order to add layers of beauty to what could have been mundanity. The production design is great too. All one needs is to take a cursory glance at each of the two couples’ domiciles to know that there are going to be class-based thematics that get mixed into the paternity story being told, but the locations are able to accomplish this feat without ever feeling in any way crafted or artificial.
That well-worn plot about the overworked dad doesn’t even end up being a problem. For much of the film it feels like Fukuyama’s character is being set up as the villain of the piece, and that his hard-hearted nature is either going to lead to some breakdown on his part where he realizes that he’s been acting like a fool, or some sort of moral victory for his wife where she finally stands up to him and creates the life she and her child need whether he likes it or not, but the places the movie really go end up being much more unique and interesting than all of that. The Ryota character gets a much more lengthy journey to take than the other characters and eventually goes through so much development that, by the time the end credits roll, you can feel yourself empathizing with his struggle, if not even understanding why he is the way that he is. In this film the answers are never as easy as work-time-is-bad-and-family-time-is-good. And thank heavens for that.
If one of the big reasons Like Father, Like Son is such an effective film is the work that Koreeda did in the director’s chair, then the other big reason has to be the skill of the actors he hired to bring his characters to life. Every member of the main cast is great to a person. Fukuyama and Ono probably get the bulk of the emotional load to carry, and both of them handle the weight expertly, Furankî is endlessly charming as the more laissez-faire father figure of the picture, without ever making him feel like he’s some sort of saint who doesn’t have his own faults that a child of his would eventually have to contend with, and Ninomiya is so damned adorable as the kind-hearted young Keita that you never really even give much thought to how well he’s doing as an actor, which actually serves as proof that he did pretty darn well. Out of the main players Maki and Hwang probably get the least amount of acting to do, but even they both get a moment or two to shine, and both do really well with their opportunities. Koreeda couldn’t have asked for a better group of performers.
Despite those previous few paragraphs of heaping praise, there are still probably going to be people who will want to avoid this movie because of how inherently weepy the subject matter is. Mommies giving up their babies is about the hardest shit to sit through that there is, after all, and who needs to fill their days with more pain and suffering? To these people I would just say that it’s true that Like Father, Like Son gets hard to watch in spots, and it’s true that it’s probably going to make you squirt out at least a Capri Sun’s worth of tears when you watch it, but you should man up and give it a chance anyway. The sad stuff is really not what it’s about. It will make you cry, sure, but it’s not a tear-jerker. In fact, there are quite a few moments of laughter and joy mixed in throughout. Overall, let’s call the tone of the film bittersweet. It’s a bittersweet movie that’s sad and beautiful and it will have you feeling a closer connection to the other members of your species after you get done watching it. And really, who couldn’t stand to work a little more empathy into their daily routine?
