On this week’s episode, Nguyen Le (of the Houston Chronicle and beyond) joins the Crooked Table Podcast to discuss writer/director Hirokazu Kore-eda’s latest release, Shoplifters. The Japanese family drama triumphed at the Cannes Film Festival — winning the Palme d’Or — and competed as the nation’s submission for Best Foreign Language Film at the 91st Academy Awards, ultimately losing to Roma. We’ll discuss how Kore-eda’s film, in some respects, fares better than Alfonso Cuaron’s hit as a character-based, slice-of-life family drama.

Kore-eda’s powerful story explores the nature of family, our ongoing search for love and belonging, and the social norms that decide what are and are not acceptable forms of all of the above. Featuring a stellar ensemble cast led by Lily Franky and Sakura Ando, Shoplifters is easily one of the most underrated and criminally under-seen films of 2018. So be sure to hunt it down before delving into our spoiler-ific conversation.

Shoplifters synopsis, courtesy of Magnolia Pictures:

On the margins of Tokyo, a dysfunctional band of outsiders is united by fierce loyalty, a penchant for petty theft and playful grifting. When the young son is arrested, secrets are exposed that upend their tenuous, below-the-radar existence and test their quietly radical belief that it is love—not blood—that defines a family.

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