Tokyo Sonata is a sort of odd little picture.  Sort of funny, sort of serious, sort of sad…  You come away feeling all of these, but in the end you never really get that… punch that you’d like to have.

Salaryman Ryuhei Sasaki (Teruyuki Kagawa) loses his job to downsizing.  Rather than suffer the shame of telling his family, he continues to head off to work each day, only hanging out in the local food lines instead.  He finally ends up getting a job as a janitor at a shopping mall, but still doesn’t tell his family.

His wife, Megumi (Kyoko Koizumi) is left to deal with her two sons, and the mysterious behavior of her husband.  Until she sees him hanging out in the park rather than at work….  She winds up the victim of a home invasion and oddly heads off with her assailant, in a bid to “start over.”…

Their oldest son, a stereotypical directionless teenager, signs up for the US Military (which I think must be quite a “dis” for the family) and heads off, much to the dismay of both parents.  He’s shipped off to Afghanistan….

The younger son is left to deflect what remains, and proceeds to follow his talents and take piano lessons, against the wishes of his father.

All of these paths eventually come crashing down on their followers, and in the end they come back together as a family and, I suppose, live happily ever after as the young boy gets accepted to a private music high school….  the end.

Actually, the way I’ve described it is pretty close to the mark.  It never really reaches out and grabs you, there’s always a “cloud” hovering over everything and everyone in this film, and I just couldn’t sink myself into it very much.  I guess it was OK, but that’s about where my verdict lies.  Maybe you’ll take more away from it than I did….

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