The Japanese film-maker Naomi Kawase adapts Mizuki Tsujimura’s 2015 novel in this tender, compassionate drama about the complexities of motherhood. Satoko (Hiromi Nagasaku), the adoptive mother of six-year-old Asato (Reo Sato), is thrown into crisis when a young woman claiming to be her son’s biological mother attempts to blackmail her.
The film mostly plays out in flashback, giving context to each mother’s “truth”, and equal weight to both women’s sacrifices. “Baby Baton”, the charity that connects the two, requires Satoko to quit her job and pledge to become a full-time parent, while 14-year-old Hikari (Aju Makita) is told to legally agree to permanently sever all ties with her newborn son.
Kawase’s frequent use of handheld camera gives parts of the film a quasi-documentary feel, but it’s the lyrical touches, such as a beam of blinding sunlight that falls on Satoko and her husband after signing the adoption papers, and an oceanic soundscape that recurs throughout, that hit the hardest.
