Ryûsuke Hamaguchi's latest, All of a Sudden is a revelation. A mediation on the everyday lives of his characters and the weightier ideas orbiting them, the film transcends the experiences and ideas it presents.
Considering that the film glides between realism and lyricism, all considerations of any individual's current realities slowly merge to offer a broader and profoundly hopeful statement on human connection. As usual, Hamaguchi deliberately crafts a film that manipulates time: Wordy and slow-paced in places but then breaking free into something eternal.
Hamaguchi's ingenious ability to craft affinities evident in life's often random interactions (as witnessed in previous films Drive My Car, 2021, and Evil Does Not Exist, 2023) has never been stronger. Conceding that circumstances throw people together, Hamaguchi continues to examine binding ties that inevitably occur.
Once again relying on multiple languages as a means for his characters to interact, his focus is a friendship between Marie-Lou (Virginie Efira, A Private Life, 2025), the newly appointed director of a Parisian elderly-care facility, and Mari (Tao Okamoto), a Japanese theatre director living with terminal cancer.
One day, as Marie-Lou leaves her workplace, she encounters a developmentally-disabled man running. Following him to a nearby park, she sits with him until his caregivers arrive. We find out his name is Tomoki, grandson of actor Gorō Kiyomiya, who is accompanied by Mari Morisaki. She is the director of the play, Up Close, No One Is Normal, in which Gorō stars.
When Marie-Lou attends the play, she discovers an uncanny link. Gorō stars as Italian psychiatrist Franco Basaglia. His challenges to notions of institutional confinement echo Marie-Lou's own thoughts and beliefs about her workplace.
Tomoki plays a crucial part in this presentation as someone who interrupts his grandfather's stage performance - itself a reiteration of Hamaguchi's desire to bust borders, both in his theatrical depictions, as in Drive My Car, and now here in this film. This moment is key to understanding his methodology, as it opens up the possibilities evident here.
Marie-Lou and Mari grow close, spending more and more time together and sharing ideas. When Marie-Lou and Mari are together, they inhabit an intimate world. The audience watches kindred spirits find each other.
Even when they engage in ideas from outer spheres, it is the exchange between them that is significant. From their interactions, Hamaguchi creates a cinematic universe that expands from that. It is about how quickly the two women bond and how the intensity of their connection ripples out.
Conversations form the backbone of the narrative, but it's not nearly as simple as that. As they discuss everything from their own lives to issues around elder care and how the larger capitalist society creates barriers between inner and outer lives, Hamaguchi folds in the experiences of those around them.
Inside the facility, they interact with the patients. The filmmaker creates a delicate balance between the professional performers and those in the home who have not acted before. Virginie Efira and Tao Okamoto are captivating in the lead roles, while Kyōzō Nagatsuka (Gorō Kiyomiya) provides strong support.
When Marie-Lou convinces Mari to stay at her facility, the inevitable blend of their ideas into a more theatrical approach to elder care occurs. They produce a play where the boundary between audience and performers is open: There's no pressure placed on the patients, but their aim is to delicately elicit response.
It's truly wondrous to watch, as the ideas that these friends have shared are developed into a richer, fuller experience of Humanitude. It is no longer a vague concept about reaching people - it is fully realized.
Duration is a fundamental principle that drives Ryûsuke Hamaguchi's work, but especially so in All of a Sudden. Drawing the viewer ever so slowly and gently into this meditation on the larger, more difficult realities evident in everyday existence, he makes it clear that these are situations we can't necessarily escape but we don't often want to face. Barriers may remain but even as this filmmaker tackles difficult subjects over time, he provides a gentle more humane view of the ways in which personal connection manifests a kinder gentler approach to them.
All of a Sudden is not about the expression of words and ideas: it's about how connecting with others on any level becomes a transformative act of listening that empowers both parties.