Tokyo Twilight (1957) review

An aging man has two adult daughters with problems - the older one is married to a heavy drinker, the younger one has money issues and boy trouble - and those problems, it seems, have something to do with the fact that their mother abandoned them as children. This places too much of a burden on the mental well-being of its characters on their single-parent household, which I think is a bit unfair - a lot of America comes from single-parent homes and turn out okay (our current President being one) - but Ozu is right: a stable two-party support system is ideal. This is one of the more morose Ozu pictures I've seen to date, and though the frigid atmosphere accompanied by forays into the 'darker' aspects of life (alcoholism, abortion, suicide) isn't typical for the filmmaker, his impeccably becalmed style tempers the sensational and acknowledges that maybe if everything isn't going to work out for the best, we should make the most of what we have … it also says that a well-meaning and considerate parent can raise two screwed-up children.