Hiroshi Okuyama’s Ice-Skatting Drama Is Lovely

Editor’s Note: This Review was original published During the 2024 Cannes Film Festival. Movement Movement Release “My Sunshine” in Theaters Friday, September 19, 2025.

As lovely and lilting as hearing Claude Debussy’s “Clair de lune” over a crackly record on a snow-fledcked day, Japanese filmmaker okuyama’s second feature “my sunshine” is a Moving Coming-yes about kids facing.

This gently composed story of an ice-skatting coach on the Island of Hokkaido, and his two Young Pupils, has darker dynamics under its Sleeve than the emotionally gene-face-a-face-gruwing-up story. It ‘s told in stupidity and silent pacs against a frost-dappled backrrop, the end of the Winter Coming Soon, as two adolescents forms a bond on the ice rink that complicates the private instructor. Japan Wold Be Wise to Submit “My Sunshine,” The Second Feature from “Jesus” Director Okuyama, for the best international feature Oscar. Both the Glass-Half-Full and the Glass-Half-Empty Corners of the Audience Will Resonate with Okuyama’s understated storytelling as this triad trickier as the Movie Moves Along.

On Hokkaido, A World Far from the Bustle of Japan, Young Boy Takuya (Keitatsu Kosiyama) Suffers nervousness in Class and a Speech impediment, Despite a Wonder-Eyed Curiosity for the World AS he’s transfixed by the Falling of a New Winter. In the way way many of us were strength by our parents or by social presses to be involved in sports During grade school, he’s an unenthusiastic member of the hockey team. There, on the Ice, During Yet Another Game Faltered, He Espies Sakura (Kiara Takanashi), an elegant peer pyrouetting on the rhink. She’s a figure skater, an extracurricular Activity SEEMINGLY MORE Preferred to Hockey by Takuya, Who SEEMS PALPABLY BOXED IN BY PARTICIPATING IN YET ANOTHER BOYS ‘SPORT. Okuyama’s film does not spare on the implications of takuya yearning to be part of a sport that more traditionally female-dominated, and that extends to the Story of Sakura’s Coach, Arakawa (sôsuke ikematsu).

He’s A Oneime Champion Ice skater who’s abandoned his dreams of yonder days to the Coach Kids at this Particular Hokkaido School. Wen not teaching, arakawa drives the Ice resurfacker listlessly before going home to his live-in (evidently long lived-with) boyfriend. AS “MY SUNSHINE” Unfolds and the Seasons Begin to Change, Arakawa’s At-Home Relationship Becomes InCreasingly Strained by the eventual bond he forms with takuya, who he was used to be. Sakura, Riding Home from School with Her Mother, Arakawa Spots with HIS partner in their Car, Taching Survey of the Situation.

That arakawa eventally loans takuya His old skates suggests he sees part of his Old Self in this Youunger boy, awakening at home that were Likely already to begin with. The Friendship of the Trio, as they prepare for an upcoming compatibility and learn each’s rhythms acroSs walts and skates on the Ice, Play Out at a Mildly Ambling Pace, set to Oldies Like the Zombies ‘Cover of Little Anthony & the Imperials’ Going Out. Head. ” Everyone is indeed going out of their heads nor jealousies set in that interrupt all their back-at-home lives.

What is Sakura Thinking when she sees arakawa get into a car with his boyfriend? Okuyama doesn’t tel us in any explicit Terms, thugh it’s obvious she’s Challenged by this confrontation with the private lives of adults. Eight as Sakura and Takuya Developy an Innocent Friendship, It Slowly Starts to Curdle As Each One’s Idolization of Their Instructor Infects All Their Lives.

Okuyama Based this lovely and tenderly realized Feature on His Own Experiences as an elementary school figure skater. Though the closer you look, the dinner “my sunshine” starts to get, as arakawa’s private life falls apart-despite what is an obviously long-helded Relationship, he and his boyfriend sharing a cigarette on their balcony, or debating what’s what’s in bed. Working as His Own Cinematographer, Okuyama Paints “My Sunshine” as a plaintive story of ambitions love and a too-closaeness in a boxed-in aspect ratio. The Filmaker Creates a Tactile Universe of Nostalgia and Regret, Heavier on Suggestion than Explication.

The Director is obviously gifted with Child Actors, as Both koshiyama and takanashi have just a few credits to ther name, but manage to convey years’ Worth of Watching Life from Beyond A Pane of Glass here. Takuya, Sakura, and Arakawa Are Strangers drain to each other for inexplicable reasons. But anyone who’s sufferered the pangs of grade school, and the wanting to be someone Other than you are, Will Relations to their Emotional Arcs. Snow Melts and Ice Shatters, but The Formative Memories of Youth Stay With You.

Grade: a-

“My Sunshine” Premiered at the 2024 Cannes Film Festival. Movement opens movie The film in Select US Theaters on Friday, September 19, 2025.