Sudden Rain

Sudden Rain is a comic-melancholic exercise in repetition and counterpoint, with precisely calibrated domestic irritations set to delicate piano. Setsuko Hara and Shuji Sano are a husband and wife well rehearsed in daily routine—he with his newspaper, she at her knitting, carefully framed in separate rooms. She wants to go out; he’d rather stay home and “enjoy family life,” but there’s little enjoyment to be had in a household plagued by money worries, distracting neighbors, and a newlywed niece with troubles of her own. The surface tension could hold indefinitely—or a slight shift in perspective could change everything. “A masterpiece in miniature” (IFC News).