Review of Dear Tomorrow (2025)
Seen in 2026.
Involuntary loneliness in Japan, exemplified by a middle-aged man and woman at the tail end of the COVID-19 pandemic.
The choice of scale here is excellent. The two examples show many sides of the issue at a satisfactory depth. Picking one of the two main characters from an earlier or later cohort would probably have been a distraction.
Under the hard constraints of scale, the edges of the picture are somewhat distorted. The film has a few scenes with Noda Seiko. It implies that she was the country’s first Minister of Loneliness. In reality, she followed Sakamoto Tetsushi, who was appointed and dismissed in 2021. Noda lasted only from September 2021 to August 2022 and had plenty of other responsibilities. The end of her appointment resulted from a successful bit of vengeful terrorism: The assassination of Prime Minister Abe Shinzō. After Noda’s last appearance in the film, we see a reaction from Kishida Fumio, Abe’s successor. He oversaw the campaign that ordered Noda’s dismissal. Like Abe and others in the conservative elite, Noda was tied to the Unification Church, a religious organization.
Masato, the male subject of the documentary, applies for aid when he is fired from his job, where he says he has been scapegoated and forced to work long hours. The documentary clearly shows that government measures taken against loneliness are as cheap as possible, so to get any help, Masato has to move out of his apartment, to a cheaper apartment where he is equally alone. Masato’s position is the same as that of Abe’s assassin: They are almost the same age, both unemployed and struggling with suicidal ideation. If Noda’s conservative LDP had not been so entrenched in power, with its cozy cult connections, perhaps Masato’s society had not been so atomized, or so exploitative. It is funny, in this context, that the lonely man is helped by a Buddhist monk, who preaches to Masato that we are fundamentally alone, albeit dependent on others.