I will not expand here on the delicate direction and sensitive story. I guess plenty of people have been writing and singing about this but, if I may be a tad insensitive, mastering direction and having a nice storyline is not sufficent to make a great movie.
I enjoyed it, as I always enjoy the craft of highly-skilled/gifted directors, but come on, Shoplifters really plays it easy with its sugar-coated storyline. "Subtle" here means a recipe where you bundle 100% golden-heart characters with some potentially darker but not-so-important backstories that audience is allowed to know in the end. The emotional stress stays the same all along, aside from the little girl's situation (which stays pretty generic) there is no one you can really empathize with. Basically, gentle characters are well directed within an empty shell.
In a nushell I enjoyed the craft but kept waiting for another dimension to materialize, and in the end this movie stands light years behind references like de Sica's Bicycle Thief or Kurosawa's Donzoko.
I enjoyed it, as I always enjoy the craft of highly-skilled/gifted directors, but come on, Shoplifters really plays it easy with its sugar-coated storyline. "Subtle" here means a recipe where you bundle 100% golden-heart characters with some potentially darker but not-so-important backstories that audience is allowed to know in the end. The emotional stress stays the same all along, aside from the little girl's situation (which stays pretty generic) there is no one you can really empathize with. Basically, gentle characters are well directed within an empty shell.
In a nushell I enjoyed the craft but kept waiting for another dimension to materialize, and in the end this movie stands light years behind references like de Sica's Bicycle Thief or Kurosawa's Donzoko.