Ungainly, but emotionally dynamic
to pawn – he’s so ungainly that he bumps into, and breaks, a window while trying to move potted plants in preparation for the impending typhoon that lends the film its title.
Such physical awkwardness functions as a kind of visual metaphor for the character, a divorced father who once wrote a prize-winning novel, but who now works as a private detective while yearning to reconnect with his school-age son, Shingo (Taiyo Yoshizawa).
As with all of Kore-eda’s films, very little happens that is conventionally cinematic. Even the titular storm takes place largely off camera, as the film’s four main characters gather for an enforced sleepover at Ryota’s mom’s place when the rains prevent everyone from returning to their homes.
That climactic sleepover is awkward for everyone, not just Ryota, who wishes that Kyoko were not involved with another man, and who makes a half-hearted pass at her that is quickly rebuffed.
She’s running out of patience with Ryota for his consistently late or missing child-support payments. And Shingo seems to crave a connection with his dad as badly as Ryota does, although neither seems to know how to facilitate it.
It’s during that overnight storm that Ryota and Shingo sneak out to a nearby park where Ryota and his father used to gather when Ryota was a child. Folded inside the park’s child-size tunnels, Abe looks even more ungainly than before. But it is there that some barely perceptible barometric change occurs in the film’s emotional dynamics.
It isn’t clear what has happened but as the film ends and skies clear, there’s a glimmer of hope that life might someday offer Ryota, if not the salvation of more melodramas, then maybe a bit more breathing room. – Washington Post