True Mothers

Japan’s Official Submission to the Academy Awards. Ends Thursday, March 4.

(Japan / 2020 / Directed by Naomi Kawase)

This powerful adaptation of a 2015 novel by Mizuki Tsujimura is a touching family story of love and adoption. Weaving together multiple timelines with a contemplative pacing and keen sense of place, True Mothers is “a deeply touching celebration of women who assume duties of love, support and compassion” (Awards Watch).

A Tokyo couple undergoing treatment for infertility live a settled, ordinary life. One day, they come across a TV program advertising Baby Baton, a not-for-profit association intended to match couples who can’t procreate with mothers who either don’t want to or cannot raise their natural children. As they watch, the couple realizes adoption could be a perfect alternative to their painful and frustrating treatment.  And so Asato, an innocent child born of pure adolescent love – the kind of love made of sheer, intense beauty – is delivered into the wealthy, orderly life of his adoptive parents. Six years later, his young mother comes looking for him, having grown out of the petty, narrow-minded world she lived in when she gave birth as a teenager. Kawase’s film offers a new perspective on the notion of adoption, weaving different narrative threads into a touching, sometimes unsettling, emotionally intense experience.

Unrated / 2 hrs 20 mins.
In English and Japanese with subtitles.