Shoplifters is a quiet, devastating drama about a family that steals to survive. It won the Palme d’Or at Cannes, and it’s easy to see why. Hirokazu Kore-eda directs with a patient eye and a clear moral vision, and the film’s central question — what makes a family? — feels both urgent and timeless.
The Shibata family lives in a small house in the outskirts of Tokyo. They’re poor, they’re close, and they get by through shoplifting and odd jobs. Osamu (Lily Franky) and his wife Nobuyo (Sakura Ando) work low-wage jobs. Aki (Mayu Matsuoka) works at a peep show. Shota (Kairi Jo) is their son, and he and Osamu routinely shoplift from stores using a system of hand signals. When they find Yuri (Miyu Sasaki), a neglected neighborhood girl locked out on her apartment balcony, they bring her home with them.
They only intend to have her stay for dinner. But after finding evidence of abuse, they decide not to return her. She bonds with the family, learns to shoplift, and is renamed Lin. The family’s secret is that it’s not really a family at all. The parents never married. Aki’s parents, lying that their daughter is living in Australia, are also the father of Hatsue’s son from an affair, whom Hatsue visits for money.
That’s the setup. Kore-eda lets the plot unfold at a slow, deliberate pace, refusing to rush toward a finish. The film is about watching this family hold itself together, and then watching it start to unravel. Osamu urges Shota to see Yuri as his sister, but Shota is reluctant. The family cuts Yuri’s hair, burns her old clothes, and renames her Lin.
When Hatsue dies in her sleep, Osamu and Nobuyo bury her under the house to avoid reporting the death and keep collecting her pension. It’s a grim, practical decision, and Kore-eda doesn’t judge it with a moralizing eye. He simply shows it.
The film’s most striking quality is its refusal to romanticize poverty or criminality. The Shibata family is not noble. They are desperate, petty, and sometimes cruel. Kore-eda lets them be human, and that honesty is what makes the film so moving. The performances are uniformly excellent, particularly Lily Franky as Osamu, whose face carries the weight of a man who has lost everything except the people around him.
The film’s tagline — “Sometimes you choose your family” — captures its core. The Shibata family is not related by blood. They are bound by need, by habit, and by the daily labor of pretending to be something they’re not. When the family visits the beach and Hatsue expresses contentment that she will not die a lonely death, it’s a moment of genuine warmth, even as the film’s ending turns toward tragedy.
Shoplifters is a rare thing: a film about criminality that never becomes a thriller, and a film about poverty that never becomes a lecture. It’s a story about people who love each other, who want to protect each other, and who will do terrible things to keep each other alive. The film earns its ending, which is rare.
The film’s flaws are minor. A few of the supporting characters, like the neighbors and the shopkeepers, are drawn more broadly than the central family. But these are minor quibbles against a film that holds its moral ground with such confidence.
“Sometimes you choose your family.”
Shoplifters is a masterpiece of restraint and feeling. It’s a film about the things that hold us together and the things that break us apart.
Trailer, via GAGAIntl.
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