A quiet storm film movie#

The film’s slow pace and quotidian portrait of lower-middle-class life may be a turnoff for some viewers, but the biggest challenge is finding a way to root for a protagonist who behaves so much like the bad guy - not a movie bad guy, but the kind that’s all too familiar from real life. Following the death of his ne’er-do-well father, Ryota faces the reality that he has become the man he never wanted to be, but translating this realization into positive change isn’t so easy. This may sound like the setup for a gritty descent into neo-noir, but “After the Storm” is actually a quiet character study of a man in slow-motion crisis. RELATED: Review: 'Truman' a 5-star look at friendship and life

In reality, though, he’s too busy losing money at the racetrack (that means bicycles in Japan, apparently) and stalking his ex-wife to get much writing done. Ryota got into the business of tailing wayward spouses - not to mention tracking down the occasional lost dog - ostensibly as research for his next novel. Private detective Shinoda Ryota (Hiroshe Abe) offers this sage advice to a teenage boy immediately after shaking him down for hush money over a sexual impropriety. “It’s not easy growing up to be the man you want to be.”Īs pearls of cynical wisdom go, this one ranks up there with Clint Eastwood’s “We all got it coming, kid,” from “Unforgiven.” It also neatly encapsulates the theme of “After the Storm,” from Japanese director Hirokazu Koreeda (“Still Walking”).