Oh Lucy!
Cannes Film Festival
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1h 35m
Alliance of Women Film Journalists Selection! Read an excerpt from Liz Whittemore's AWFJ review: "At the suggestion of her niece, lonely middle-aged Setsuko takes English lessons. When her plucky teacher John goes missing, Setsuko gets on a plane to California in search of love and a life-changing adventure. Atsuko Hirayanagi's film explores hidden sadness and uncertainty through spontaneous and irrational behavior. OH LUCY! underscores the lengths we'll go to feel whole."
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Bored Tokyo office lady Setsuko (Shinobu Terajima) breaks free of her monotonous life, when her niece, Mika (Shioli Kutsuna), convinces her to enroll in an unorthodox English class. There, she adopts a blonde-haired alter ego named “Lucy” and develops romantic feelings for her American instructor, John (Josh Hartnett). But after his sudden disappearance, Setsuko follows his trail halfway around the world to Southern California, where family ties and past lives are tested as she struggles to fulfill the promise of “Lucy.”
The debut feature of award-winning writer/director Atsuko Hirayanagi, OH LUCY! was executive produced by Will Ferrell and Adam McKay and made its world premiere at Cannes International Critics' Week. The film was nominated in the Best First Feature and Best Actress categories at the Independent Spirit Awards. "CRITIC'S PICK. The writer-director Atsuko Hirayanagi isn’t selling a packaged idea about what it means to be human; she does something trickier and more honest here, merely by tracing the ordinary absurdities and agonies of one woman’s life." - Manohla Dargis, The New York Times
DIRECTED BY ATSUKO HIRAYANAGI
UNITED STATES, JAPAN | 2017 | ENGLISH & JAPANESE WITH ENGLISH SUBTITLES
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