Must-See 2024 Cinema: Uncover This Sweet Gem from Japan Before Making Your Top Movie List

What’s the Story?

In Hokkaido, winter means hockey season for the boys. However, Takuya is mesmerized by Sakura, a new arrival from Tokyo, who practices figure skating. His clumsy attempts to mimic her catch the eye of Sakura’s coach, who decides to train them as a duo for an upcoming competition. As winter progresses, a harmony develops between them despite their differences, but as the first snows melt and spring arrives, their time together inevitably comes to an end.

My Sunshine, a Familiar Tune

If you find the holiday season less than relaxing (and you’re not alone in thinking that), “My Sunshine” is the perfect respite. Its calmness and gentleness serve as an enchanted, or rather, snow-covered interlude. The film is set against the snowy landscapes of Hokkaido, Japan, marking Hiroshi Okuyama’s second feature film following “Jesus,” released in 2019.

The film, like its predecessor, is set away from Japan’s major cities and deals with themes of childhood and upbringing. Takuya (Keitatsu Koshiyama), the main character of “My Sunshine,” struggles to fit into the conventional mold of his peers, finding himself more drawn to the grace of figure skating, practiced by Sakura (Kiara Nakanishi), than the harshness of ice hockey, the winter sport designated for boys.

The authenticity of the story likely stems from the director’s personal experiences. “I practiced figure skating in elementary school,” he shares in the press kit. “I was just following my older sister who was trying to become an athlete, but strangely, it never felt like a chore. I remember watching the girls who skated brilliantly and thinking how much I would like to dance like them, just like Takuya, the main character.”

But that’s not the only personal touch in the film: “An experience also led me to imagine the protagonist with a stuttering problem. Although I haven’t talked much about it publicly, I suffered from a tic in my childhood that made me involuntarily clear my throat. Back then, I wished so much that my classmates would leave me alone instead of mimicking me or giving me weird nicknames, so I wanted Takuya to have a best friend who never mentions his stuttering or makes a big deal out of it.”

These memories started to take shape into a film thanks to a song: “I discovered ‘My Sunshine’ by Humbert Humbert and, listening to it every day, the story I needed to film began to come to life. At the same time, I met Sōsuke Ikematsu [who plays Sakura’s coach, ed.] and was convinced that if I could capture his charm on screen, I could make the film.”

The word “charm” is undoubtedly one of the most fitting to describe “My Sunshine,” which, like “Joli joli,” also released this December 25th, feels like spending time in a gentle bubble. Or a snow globe. The release date is particularly fitting as, like the holiday season, the narrative has an ending signaled by the approaching spring which will inevitably conclude the winter activities that bring Takuya and Sakura together.

“If Someone Spells Out the Entire Story and Emotions, I Can’t Feel Involved”

Yet everything is done with gentleness, modesty, and a preference for showing rather than telling, allowing each viewer to find their own meaning: “When there’s a deliberate emptiness, it prompts me to try to understand the film, to interpret it by filling in the gaps with my own thoughts, until I come to think: ‘This is a film for me!’ If someone spells out the entire story and emotions, I can’t feel involved.”

This approach allows “My Sunshine” to elegantly avoid pitfalls, inviting us into its cocoon. You would do well not to finalize your Top Films of 2024 lists before nestling into this film, which, after enchanting the Un Certain Regard section at the latest Cannes Film Festival, does the same in our theaters.