Cannes 2022, remote notes

[Chris Knipp]

CANNES DAY 10, MAY 26: KORE-EDA COMPETITION FILM


SCENE FROM KORE-EDA'S BROKER

BROKER (Hirakazu Kore-eda)
Cannes. In Competition. Gets a miserable 2/5 stars from Bradshaw of The Guardian, who calls this child adoption tale "sudsy" and says he "gets the tone all wrong." Bradshaw acknowledges Kore-eda's a kind of heir to Ozu (though he himself prefers a nod to Naruse), and that he's "rightly revered. But the Japanese master has "a sweet tooth for whimsy and sentimentality" also shown in LIKE FATHER LIKE SON, which comes out here, says Bradshaw, who thinks this film "silly," "shallow," and "not a single word of it" "really believable.". But Tim Grierson in Screen Daily finds it "sensitive and compassionate," and that seems to be a widespread critics' view, admiring, respectful, not hugely enthusiastic of the film as a film in Kore-eda's oeuvre. Kore-eda won the Palme d'Or in 2018 for SHOPLIFTERS. This is about a black market business of selling abandoned babies. It's illegal, but this time the wrongdoers are closer to being do-gooders and claim to be so. Ben Croll in The Wrap calls the film "fine but not too memorable." In Hollywood Reporter David Rooney is admiring, but admits some later story twists are "incongruously movie-ish."