The characters in the new Japanese picture, Our Little Sister (proper title: Umimachi Diary), hold our attention, but I find the story mediocre because certain things are laid on so thickly (a now dead woman became involved with Sachi’s married father; now Sachi is involved with a married pediatrician).  In addition, the film is so humanistic—and finally so sentimental—that all the major characters are, or become, virtual saints.  It is as though every fault has melted away.  This is not the case with a great film like Ozu’s Tokyo Story, which I bring up since Sister resembles an Ozu production.

The movie is based on a comic-book novel which director Hirokazu Kore-da probably should have left alone.