Moving

Moving (お引越し, 1993) is a Japanese drama from director Shinji Sōmai, available to watch online on iFILM. Eleven-year-old Renko learns her parents are about to live apart — the first quiet step toward a divorce nobody will name out loud.

At first two households feel almost like an adventure to her: twice the rooms, twice the attention. But the cold standoff between her mother and father keeps widening, and Renko sets herself an impossible task, to glue the family back together on her own. Tomoko Tabata carries the film in long, patient close-ups of a child reading more than the grown-ups admit. Sōmai films the breakup without melodrama or tidy lessons, in extended takes and with a cool, watchful eye. It rewards anyone who prefers slow, observational cinema to neat resolutions. Stream Moving (1993) online on iFILM.