I Wish

Writes Roger Ebert: During his entire career, Kore-eda, 49, has been invested in sympathetic stories about people we warmly identify with. His frequent theme is parents and children. You may remember his well-received "After Life" (1998), about people asked after death to film one chosen event in their lives. Or the more painful "Nobody Knows" (2004), about a family of children left in an apartment to fend for themselves in their mother's absence. I was much moved by "Maborosi" (1995), about a young widow and her son who move to a coastal village where they know no one.

In "I Wish," he enters easily into the lives of Koichi (Koki Maeda), a fourth grader, and Ryunosuke (Ohshiro Maeda), a few years younger. These are blessed children. You can't just tell actors, especially young ones, to "act happy" and expect them to do it. They must in some essential way be happy. Here they're filled with the energy and hopes of childhood, their smiles are quick and open, laughter comes easily, and they seem to run everywhere, as if they never learned to walk.

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