DIY Japanese drama ‘The Longing’ wrestles with reform

It's a film whose wisdom and emotional complexity creep in slowly through the corners of the frame, often taking the viewer by surprise. Its lo-fi video aesthetic begins in choppy, haphazard territory as it captures teenage ruffian Yuto (Ido Daiki) robbing a convenience store with his friends, a scene made propulsive and disorienting through rapid-fire editing akin to a YouTube vlog. However, The Longing soon slows down and begins taking its time, gradually unfurling the emotional parameters of its story.

Yuto, upon being apprehended, quickly ends up in detention, and when Hiro visits the reform center where Yuto is being held, it’s a matter of casual routine for the aging business owner. He knows the probation officers and the process surrounding hiring convicted criminals, including the strict lines they’re forced to walk, and the watchful eye he needs to keep on them to ensure they walk the straight and narrow. Yuto agrees to join the kitchen staff, but staying the path isn’t easy, for both logistical and emotional reasons.

Yuto seems, at first, like a vagabond who’s unwilling avail of the second chance he’s granted (let alone the third and the fourth, when he screws up), but the more we learn about him, the more his lackadaisical, self-destructive behavior fades into focus. His life is defined by feelings of abandonment and abuse, so the kindness shown to him by Hiro and Sono isn’t something to which he’s accustomed.

However, the couple’s kindness may not be wholly altruistic, and their relationship is far from ideal. They’re good people in the abstract, but Hiro’s reasons for repeatedly trying to reform petty thieves and other criminals (even at the cost of online hate directed at him and his family) are rooted similarly in personal demons that slowly come to the fore. In The Longing, reform is a tall task both from inside and out—both for the people trying to win back their lives, and for those trying to help them, despite their repeated failings.

Complicating matters further is the couple’s numerous visits to a fertility specialist, as Sono continues trying to finally get pregnant despite her age, smiling through every difficulty as she tries to keep her head above water. The looming specter of parenthood—a joy she and Hiro may never share—not only exacerbates the issues between them, but further emphasizes the paternalistic approach they take to watching over Yuto, whether he likes it or not. Whether or not their dynamic is a metaphor for older parents and rebellious children, it bears the hallmarks of that same emotional strain, and imbues each of the trio’s interactions with a sense of grand importance.

Then again, their relationship isn’t math. It can’t be solved like an equation, by simply adding up a couple in need of a child (whose inability to communicate is a much more pressing concern), and a teen in search of parental guidance. All three characters exist beyond their immediate circumstances, and their respective pasts dictate not only a tumultuous present, but an uncertain future. When Yuto meets and falls for a teenage bar dancer, Yukiha (Sasha), his fragile equilibrium is thrown further off balance.The mere possibility of a normal life, one filled with romance and frolic, is challenged at every turn by a system nominally dedicated to rehabilitation, but one that ends up closer to a personal surveillance state.

As tensions build between Yuto, Hiro and Sono—an ostensible found family—the walls seem to close in from every side. The film’s gas lamp warmth works as a nighttime aesthetic, and as ambience for the couple’s restaurant, but when applied to other spaces (and scenes set during daylight), it takes on a sickly, jaundiced appearance. Something always feels amiss. Even as Yuto is drawn in different directions (the club where he meets Yukiha provides a brief respite in the form of funky neons), he seems spiritually tethered to his place of employment, as though labor were the only possible path to redemption.

However, the further the movie gets into its 104-minute runtime, the more it becomes clear that Yuto, and all of the movie’s characters, are trapped by economic and social circumstances in which addressing the root causes of people’s malaise works counter to the larger systems around them. Their drama, while subtle, is constantly intensified by suffocating hierarchies that, although they depend on people’s kindness, seem built without escape hatches and lifeboats in mind, for anyone who lives a life of difficulty or imperfection. Most of all, The Longing taps into the herculean difficulty of reform as an emotional process, for people forced to adhere to the norms and expectations of a society that has all but cast them aside.