appConfigEntityId

bodyType

customContents

entityId

entityUuid

isVideo

articlePageQuery

article

articleSchemaContent

content

hooksArticlePageAdvertisementConfigArticle

hooksArticlePageFloatingButtonConfigArticle

appConfig

filter

json

liveArticle

Clarence Tsui

4/5 stars
In Renoir, hardly anybody cries. Its eerily calm characters shed barely a tear even when caring for the dying, mourning the dead or struggling with their lifeless marriages.
Yet Chie Hayakawa’s second feature isn’t set in the kind of dystopia seen in her debut film Plan 75, in which the elderly are encouraged to participate in a state-sponsored euthanasia programme to make the country young again.
Set in Japan in the 1980s and revolving around the life of a schoolgirl whose father lies dying in hospital from cancer, Renoir is an empathetic portrait of a child’s rite of passage in a society beset by very real moral dilemmas.


More importantly, Hayakawa offers a subtle, yet spot-on critique of the twisted social norms which would have made the inhuman scheme in Plan 75 a very distinct reality.
Premiering in competition at the Cannes Film Festival, Renoir is bolstered by Hayakawa’s sound screenplay and solid mise-en-scène, in which her characters’ frostiness is contrasted with the warm colour palettes of cluttered Japanese homes in summertime.
She also teases remarkable performances from her cast. The beating heart of the film, 11-year-old Yui Suzuki, shines throughout with her nuanced turn as Fuki, a girl who seems unable to properly regard the pain of others.
She hardly flinches as she looks at images of bawling toddlers, and munches snacks as she listens to the testimonies of survivors of the atomic bomb. Her fascination with telepathy seems to trump her attention for her terminally ill father, Keiji (Lily Franky, Shoplifters).

Gently yet steadily, Hayakawa’s script reveals the girl as merely someone seeking connections with others in her own way. If real people seem to fail her, she would rather try looking for kindred spirits in the supernatural, in animals and in art – specifically that of the French impressionist Pierre-Auguste Renoir.
But the girl is also shown to be a very distinct product of her time. Fuki’s mother, Utako (Hikari Ishida), declares herself as “having a lot of things on my mind about the future” as she prepares for her husband’s imminent funeral in the most unsentimental manner possible.
Such pragmatism is mirrored by the sociopathic behaviour of those around them: a charlatan selling fake cancer cures, a handsome man scamming angst-ridden middle-aged women, and a child molester running amok in the neighbourhood.
Behind the benign appearance of these characters is an unnerving amorality, which Hayakawa ties subtly to the greed-is-good mentality that spawned Japan’s bubble economy in the 1980s.

Yet Renoir rarely resembles a period piece, Hayakawa perhaps telling us the troubling past she depicts is not in fact in the past at all.
Want more articles like this? Follow SCMP Film on Facebook


Mariko Mori’s ‘All That Shines’ at Mori Art Museum: inside her landmark Tokyo exhibition

Venice 2026: 10 of the festival’s best movies, from Woman Unknown to Possible Love and Musk

Venice 2026: Arrested Memory movie review – Ethan Ruan leads Sabu’s muddled crime thriller

Venice 2026: Look Back movie review – Hirokazu Koreeda explores childhood manga dreams

Asian cinema: Japanese films

Cannes 2025: Renoir movie review – Plan 75’s Chie Hayakawa considers amorality in Japan

Yui Suzuki in a still from Renoir. Photo: Handout

Yui Suzuki in a still from Renoir, directed by Chie Hayakawa. Lily Franky and Hikari Ishida co-star. Photo: Handout

Lily Franky (right) plays the dying father in Renoir.

Hikari Ishida (left) and Yui Suzuki in a still from Renoir.

Cannes 2025: Eddington movie review – Joaquin Phoenix, Pedro Pascal lead Covid-era western

Joaquin Phoenix (left) as Sheriff Joe Cross and Pedro Pascal as Mayor Ted Garcia in a still from Eddington, directed by Ari Aster. Emma Stone co-stars

Ari Aster (centre) and cast members (from left) Emma Stone, Austin Butler, Joaquin Phoenix and Pedro Pascal arrive for the screening of Eddington at the 78th edition of the Cannes Film Festival in Cannes, France. Photo: AFP

Cannes 2025: A Pale View of Hills movie review – Suzu Hirose, Fumi Nikaido lead adaptation

Suzu Hirose as young bride Etsuko in a still from A Pale View of Hills, adapted from a 1982 novel by Kazuo Ishiguro and directed by Kei Ishikawa. Fumi Nikaido, Yoh Yoshida and Camilla Aiko co-star.

Fumi Nikaido as Etsuko’s friend, single mother Satsuko, in a still from A Pale View of Hills. Photo: Handout

Suzu Hirose as a young Etsuko in a still from A Pale View of Hills. Photo: Handout

Cannes 2025 review – Mission: Impossible The Final Reckoning sees franchise off on a high

Tom Cruise as Ethan Hunt in a still from Mission: Impossible – The Final Reckoning. Photo: Paramount Pictures and Skydance

Tom Cruise as Ethan Hunt in a still from Mission: Impossible – The Final Reckoning, directed by Christopher McQuarrie. Ving Rhames and Simon Pegg co-star. Photo: Paramount Pictures and Skydance

(From left) Hayley Atwell as Grace, Simon Pegg as Benji, Pom Klementieff as Paris and Greg Tarzan Davis as Degas in a still from Mission: Impossible – The Final Reckoning. Photo: Paramount Pictures and Skydance

Kaiju No. 8: Mission Recon movie review – sci-fi anime compilation not up to par

A still from Kaiju No. 8: Mission Recon (category IIA, Japanese), directed by Tomomi Kamiya and Shigeyuki Miya. Masaya Fukunishi and Asami Seto provide voices.

Kafka Hibino (voiced by Masaya Fukunishi) in a still from Kaiju No. 8: Mission Recon.

A still from Kaiju No. 8: Mission Recon.

Lifestyle

Entertainment

Culture

Film & TV

Chie Hayakawa’s story of a girl who, watching her father die, seeks kindred spirits in art has a message about greed-is-good 1980s Japan


Chie Hayakawa’s story of a girl who, watching her father die, seeks kindred spirits in art has a message about greed-is-good 1980s Japan.


Asian cinema

Film reviews

Cinema

Fame and celebrity

Cannes Film Festival

An assessment or critique of a service, product or creative endeavour.  Film reviews, restaurant reviews, reviews of art exhibitions. (Eg. Crazy Rich Asians: an important film, yes, but a good one?)


Review

.css-1c6uqr6{color:inherit;font-weight:inherit;font-size:inherit;font-family:inherit;line-height:inherit;overflow-wrap:break-word;}Chie Hayakawa’s story of a girl who, watching her father die, seeks kindred spirits in art has a message about greed-is-good 1980s Japan

Chie Hayakawa’s story of a girl who, watching her father die, seeks kindred spirits in art has a message about greed-is-good 1980s Japan