Shoplifters

This Oscar nominated Japanese film for Best Foreign Language Film is simply lovely. Shoplifters is why I go to the movies - a perspective that gives us insight and empathy into our fellow human beings. It's about a poor Japanese family who steal just to get by. It opens with what we believe are a farther-son duo ripping off food from a grocery store. On their way home they pick up a little four year girl who is outside on her balcony shivering, hungry; her parents can be heard inside screaming that neither of them wanted her. They give her food and ask if she wants to come with them. She is happy to go. They bring her to their tiny home where Grandma, Mom, Dad, older sister, and the son (who sleeps in a closet) live. Several days go by and the young girl isn't reported missing. So they keep her and make her part of their family. It turns out the son isn't really their son either, he was found in a car while 'Dad' was stealing something.
Shoplifters brings into focus what it is to be a family, what it means to be a mother and a father, and it puts morality out in the yard to play. Nothing in this film is heavy handed and there are no sharp tales or lessons to be had. It will give you something to reflect about your own notions of right and wrong are and what is 'family.'
Shoplifters stole my heart. Catch it at a rep cinema near you or at an online streaming service soon.