Film Review – ‘The Long Excuse’

“The Long Excuse” is a story about Sachio Masahiro Motokia, a celebrity writer, whose wife, Natsuko Eri Fukatsu, dies in a car crash. He does not at first feel the loss and even appears in a TV program with pretended bereavement. Then he meets Yoichi Omiya, a truck driver, who is left with two children to take care of after the death of his wife, Natsuko’s friend, in the same accident. Sachio offers to look after the two kids when Yoichi is at work away from home. He does this probably because he finds it difficult to proceed with his life. It is during this time that he begins to ponder his own life, his disloyalty in marriage and his lack of children. He finally allows himself to face up to his guilt and sadness and finds a renewed purpose to life.

The film is touching but not tear-jerking. In fact, it is beautifully orchestrated between joy and sadness. There are even some good laugh-out-loud moments. I enjoy how Sachio, with the help of Yoichi’s little girl, messes around with the housework. He cares so much about the girl’s sensitivity to seafood that he makes sure there is none even when buying creamy buns. It is a heart-warming scene when the girl actually has to push him from behind when he fails to cycle up a steep slope where her mother used to take her on a daily ride.

Sachio’s dealing with the boy, on the other hand, appeals more to the emotions of the audience. The mature and melancholy boy is deeply grieved at the loss of his mother, secretly lamenting that the misfortune has not fallen on his father instead. Contemptuous of Yoichi’s ignorance and inability to cope, he decides to give up enrolling in high school in order to take care of the family. In the boy Sachio sees a young man with a strong sense of responsibility, who he himself has never been. However, Yoichi’s involvement in a car accident while at work finally convinces the boy of his attachment to his father. Sachio also takes the chance to advise him to treasure everyone in the family for, all of a sudden and for no reason at all, they may be gone forever.

“The Long Excuse” is a love story. It is about love that is lost and then rediscovered. It is a movie that will leave you feeling happy and sad at the same time.