Like Father, Like Son

In Hirokazu Kore-eda’s “Like Father, Like Son,” two sets of parents have learned that their children were switched at birth. Now with the kids at age 6, the parents must consider “swapping.” It’s a scenario that seems not entirely plausible, and at worst seems to set up the audience for something tragic.

I can think of a dozen ways in which Kore-eda’s film could’ve ended that would’ve made me feel miserable. It avoids them all and feels more real as a result. “Like Father, Like Son” is one of the loveliest films of the year in the way it touches on these major choices and decisions in life with a feather touch.

The film opens delicately. The young boy Keita is attending a pre-school interview, which seems harsh in its stark wide-shot framing and tough questions for a 6-year-old, but Keita tells a little white lie to help his chances and everyone leaves smiling. It hints at the tone Kore-eda is playing with, one that is significant but also cheerful and never impossibly grim.

Keita is being put into this private school by his parents Ryota (Fukurama Masaharu) and Midori Nonomiya (Ono Machiko), a wealthy family with strict rules, high expectations for a gifted son and a truly loving household. Whereas another film might be more cynical about an imperfect child or playing up the father’s long work hours as a detriment, Kore-eda operates on these more picturesque, yet ordinary family dynamics.

Ryota and Midori soon learn that Keita was switched at birth in a clerical accident, and the hospital brokers a meeting between the Nonomiyas and the Saikis, a more middle class family with three children, the oldest of whom is Ryusei, the Nonomiyas’ biological son.

The two families get along well and the children do even better, and in addition to an option to sue the hospital, the two families tenuously discuss the possibility of swapping children before either starts school and gets too attached to their home life.

An American audience might immediately question whether such a thing would even be on the table. But this is a Japanese film, and Kore-eda taps into the very natural ideas of Japanese honor and lineage. To Ryota, the possibility that his son may lack the gifted qualities and natural bond that only his biological parentage could bestow is devastating.

Ryota begins devising a legal way in which he can try and keep both Keita and Ryusei, revoking custody from the other family, and his likeability and the sympathy we have for him erode in nuanced ways.

Kore-eda often creates this depth in the scenario through light comedy. The father of the opposite family, Yudai (Lily Franky) is a perpetual child. He believes in family bathing and runs a repair shop to fix appliances and knick-knacks. Ryota’s entire feelings about Yudai get summed up in one perfectly subdued sequence when Yudai pulls out his Velcro wallet.

What Kore-eda touches on beautifully is a theme of wanting to be seen in your son. These are caring parents who want the best but who don’t want circumstance getting in the way. “I looked at my son and named him Ryusei, but now he looks more and more like a Keita,” Yudai says.

And yet “Like Father, Like Son” finds its most wonderful grace notes through its children. The kids Kore-eda has selected emanate cuteness and charm. They’re too young for their roles to be so mature, but they hit nerves and reveal complexity in the film that the dialogue alone cannot.

I again think of the ways in which “Like Father, Like Son” could have ended. If this film is about the choices we make as fathers and the lengths we go to do the best for our child on instincts and intuition, then what purpose does it serve to operate in tragedy? Kore-eda answers that question and reconciles with its characters with grace and life. Few films have endings this picture perfect.

4 stars