On Kore-eda's Shoplifters (2018)

The pungent and heartrending story of a makeshift family, a group of members who are connected to one another not by blood but by their conjugating objective, Kore-eda’s Palme d’Or winning—as well as racking up nominations from the Academy Awards and Golden Globe—Shoplifters (2018) brilliantly dictates the beautiful and warm, but also sketchy and illegal symbiotic relationships of non-kin related “family” members. The family, initially, is comprised of Osamu (Lily Franky), Nobuyo (Sakura Ando), Aki (Mayu Matsuoka), Shota (Kairi Jo), Hatsue (Kirin Kiki), and their latest arrival Yuri (Miyu Sasaki). As the title indicates, these non-kin family members maintain their lives through shoplifting, petty theft, and tax cheating methods even though their illegal activities do not necessarily put them in either black or white spaces; but in the middle of it where the grayness resides.  

The subjective narrative plays a substantial amount in regards to our observation of the shoplifting family: even though their primary livelihood highly relies upon thieving others’ belongings, their warm family-like relations and wholesomeness of their household coupled with their financial struggles portray them not entirely as criminals but as oppressed and poor people—which is due to the magical storytelling and pacing of Kore-eda. Aside from shoplifting, their professions can be lined up in this fashion: Osamu or the father of the family works in construction, Nobuyo or the mother or auntie works in a laundry—Sakura Ando would later work in the same profession in her portrayal of a single mother in Kore-eda’s Monster (2023)—Hatsue, or most commonly referred to as Grandma, lives and contributes to family off of her late husband’s pension, and Aki works in a chatroom while the children contribute to the household through their petty shoplifting sessions. 

After another of their usual shoplifting sessions, Osamu and Shota come across an abandoned child which soon turns out to be Yuri, the boon and the downfall of their household even though they are unaware of it. Yuri is, in fact, not actually abandoned but just highly neglected, ignored, and abused by her biological parents, the aforementioned negative adjectives dissuade the shoplifters from returning Yuri back to her original household so as to create a better life for her. They claim that it is not exactly a kidnapping case since they did not take her forcefully or demand a ransom, but it is still an illegal and suspicious scenario in which they disguise Yuri’s physical appearance when she pops up on the TV as a missing person.  

One of the essential themes in Shoplifters is centered on the interpretation of family, whether it is achieved only through blood or could procreate a familiar atmosphere and living space but choosing the people whom you want your family to be. That is substantial to the narrative because none of the characters are inherently related or connected to one another, however, their relation and bonding is something that rekindles the notion of an interconnected symbiotic relationship in which all of the members are united in their search for money and livelihood. Although from portrayals of their lives, we observe that they function exactly like “normal” families, if not better, their correlation is entirely dependent upon money, let alone everything they do is extremely illegal—this hints that one wrong move or decision could cost them everything, which is precisely what happens in the film.

The entire tone of the film was imminent or inevitable to change from the start: this shift happens with the death of Grandma. They cannot provide her assistance with an ambulance or proper burial since they keep everything off the book and they do not have the nerve to take a gander at their fate and survival. The second and the most baneful blow is hit upon the makeshift family with Shota’s getting caught while shoplifting and subsequently breaking his leg, leaving him hospitalized. To avoid further suspicion and conspiracy, the makeshift family set out to run away in order to avoid incarceration and even more, however, their attempts are blockaded halfway. In the ensuing interrogation scenes, the truth is unraveled to both family members and the audience in its pure and pristine form, nonetheless, it still cannot be put into the sovereignty of either good deed or wrongdoings.

To sum up, Kore-eda’s brilliant film Shoplifters (2018) portrays the bond of several non-related members that form a decently functioning family amidst all the social and economic hardships in 21st-century Japan. Assembled in their common goal of sustaining their lives through halfway decent and halfway indecent ways, with their secrets and somewhat ambiguous world views, they constitute their lives without needing a proper, blood-related kinship. Their chosen method of family making and management would have been more successful in earlier times, perhaps in the medieval era, but it does not make the cut as a successful story in a highly industrialized, globalized, and legalistic 21st-century world that we are treading upon. Nevertheless, it is no obstruction to approach their narrative with a touch of romanticism and optimism, as they are trying their greatest efforts to make the best out of the hand they are given.