Shoplifters is a film about unique human connections. If poverty affects humanity? What is a family? Does giving birth automatically makes one a mother? Shoplifters break these barriers created by society and embraces it with connections made from love and empathy.
Hirokazu films are trademarked for exploring unconventional family bonding of complex people. His previous films like Our little sister, nobody knows and Like father, like son have explored the similar topic of human connections beyond blood relation. With shoplifters he moves on to a family living on the edge of Japanese society struggling to make their ends meet.
He portrays the characters as damaged and disoriented individuals who are setting up their own moral compass for the right and wrong. The family consists of Osamu who is a labourer , his wife Nobuyo who works at a laundry shift, Aki (initially seems to be Nobuyo sister) does sex shows and grandma’s monthly pensions further helps to support the family. They still have to rely on shop theft for their necessities.
Osamu manipulates his son Shota into believing that their shoplifting is not causing harm to others as the goods don’t belong to anyone else and the shop is not going bankrupt. Hirokazu don’t submerge these faulty characters in self-pity but evolves them into three dimensional people who are pushed to create their own belief system to survive in the society. ‘Poverty begets evil’, but these humans are capable of forming relations and shelter, dress, feed and embrace Yuri with familial love even in limited resources unlike her biological mother. This dichotomy of humanity seen through a small family is deeply heartfelt.
As it is revealed in the end that each member is not related to each other. All of them were outcasts in their own story and came together due to the unfavorable circumstances in their life. They found solace and support among each other out of financial and emotional convenience. Thus, they naturally fit into their family figure roles like a jigsaw puzzle. Even living with lack of resources and more family members to feed Osama and Nobuyu decides to shelter Yuri, dress her, feed her and embrace her with familial warmth and love. They convince themselves that it is not kidnapping as they are not asking for ransom.
As they all manage in a small crooked rented house, the little arguments between Osamu and grandmother sparks some organic humor. The banter between the family members makes them like any dysfunctional family. Thus, the climax twist is paradoxical. Shota was not Osamu and Nobuyo’s real child. It was revealed that he was found similarly like yuri by them, abandoned outside a shop.
Although the film is filled with compact and clustered spaces of Shibata family, cinematographer Ryuto Kondo succeeds in showing the amiability, coziness and the never ending magic of human spirit. In the end, these broken souls living at the edge of society becomes the easy target due to their poor backing and pay heavy prices for not following the conventions of society. shoplifters is an emotional family drama as it focuses on the nuanced peculiarity of little infectious moments and gestures that makes the most impact.