Shoplifters - 1 nomination

Foreign Film - Japan; Hirokazu Kore-eda

Shoplifters follows a Japanese family who is underemployed and makes ends meet by robbing local stores.  One day when coming home, the dad and son come upon a small girl on her own balcony, alone, crying, and neglected.  They take her with them, they feed her and clothe her and eventually "adopt" her into their family.  But as she grows, the local community assumes that her mother probably killed her because she has totally disappeared.  While this is happening, the parents want her to start shoplifting, as well, but the the son wants to protect her from this life.  Meanwhile, the son begins to question his own life and his own origin story.  This family is much more troubled than it seems, and poverty is the least of their problems.

Shoplifters was an entertaining but mediocre movie.  I heard it referred to as "poverty porn," which I think is not a fair accusation - there are lots of stories about lots of things and lots of different kinds of people.  The compelling part of this story is not that they are poor, but that they work so hard to take care of each other.  The connections between the characters is what we are drawn to, and this mom and dad who have labored to create a normal life in the context of their poverty is why I think this film was nominated in the first place.  Don't get me wrong, I enjoyed the film, I'm just not sure that it is worthy of an Oscar nomination.

*Dear readers, we are there!  Tomorrow is the big day, and I have now reviewed ALL of the films.  This is a difficult year to prognosticate, but stay tuned tomorrow for my Who Should Win/Who Will Win post!