Review | Netflix movie review: We Couldn’t Become Adults – Japanese romance drama takes a nostalgic look at dreams and regrets
- For 40-something Sato, an unexpected friend request from a former girlfriend triggers a spiral of romantic reminiscences
- Yoshihiro Mori’s film offers few answers for its protagonist or audience, beyond learning to appreciate what you have and recognising the value an ordinary life
3.5/5 stars
For many of us, the ongoing pandemic has been a period of frustration and fruitless introspection. Treading water both personally and professionally, it can be easy to get swept up in a wave of nostalgia and regret as we remember all our dreams and plans for the future and how few of them seem to have been achieved.
For one listless 40-something in Yoshihiro Mori’s We Couldn’t Become Adults, it is an unexpected friend request from a former girlfriend that triggers a spiral of romantic reminiscences that reach back 25 years.
Mirai Moriyama stars as Sato, and does an impressive job of embodying the character as a jaded 46-year-old in late 2020, as well as a timid 21-year-old, and everything in between.
Stuck in a rut, working for the same media company for the last quarter of a century, he reflects on a life of bad decisions and failed opportunities. His desperate attempts to avoid living an ordinary life have inevitably been the cause of him succumbing to just that, while successfully managing to push away anyone who ever got close to him.
Adapted from Moegara’s novel of the same name and unfolding in reverse chronological order, the film follows Sato as he steadily descends through the ranks of his company, and in turn meets the young women we have already watched him break up with.