Like Father, Like Son – A Poem Of Paternal Love…

Our next presentation is writer-director Kore-eda Hirokazu’s bittersweet, compelling drama Like Father, Like Son (Cert: PG, 121 mins, English subtitles).

“A piercing, tender poem about the bittersweet ebb and flow of paternal love” (Tim Robey, The Daily Telegraph)

Two families suddenly discover that their six-year-old boys were switched at birth and they have unknowingly been raising the other’s child.

The story centres on one of the fathers; a workaholic, affluent architect called Ryota Nonomiya who lives with his wife Midori and their polite and neatly brushed six-year-old son Keita in a well-appointed Tokyo apartment.

When Keita registers for primary school, a blood test reveals that he is not in fact the Nonomiyas’ child. Further inquiry reveals that their ‘true’ biological son (Ryusei) has been living across town with another couple who own a not-too-busy electrician’s shop.

Faced with the question of what to do, the hospital responsible for the baby-swap suggests that the two families get to know one another and, over a period of 12 months, exchange one boy for the other.

The different approaches of both couples to their excruciating dilemma and the gradual emotional awakening of the all-too-rational Ryota are at the core of this sensitive nurture vs nature drama, which won the Jury Prize at the Cannes Film Festival in 2013.

“Essentially, Like Father, Like Son is one of those rare films that keep the audience totally engaged – thoroughly profound, fully emoted and ultimately refreshing. In the scale of perfect cinema, this stands quite close.” (Andrew Chan, Film Critics Circle of Australia)

Do join us on Saturday 25th Aprll at the Russell School, Brushwood Drive. Doors and the bar open at 7.30 p.m., the film starts at 8 p,m. Tickets (£6) available in advance from Chorleywood Bookshop, online at http://www.cwfilm.org or on the door – if still available (£6.50).

This is the 7th in our season of 10 films being screened in association with The Hive.