Cottontail begins in motion, springing onto the screen almost as if by accident. Only a captive octopus and an establishing shot of a Tokyo residential block punctuate this string of opening frames showing leading man Franky Lily on the move—through doorways, down stairwells, and on mass transit between commuters. By the time Lily’s character, a recent widower named Kenzaburo, swipes seafood from an unassuming vendor, you may be reminded of Shoplifters, the actor’s Palme-winning collaboration with renowned Japanese humanist Hirokazu Kore-eda, but that, like most of what happens in Cottontail, turns out to be purely functional. Ken engages in this act of petty theft on occasion of an anniversary, the first without his wife, Akiko (played at different ages by Tae Kimura and Yuri Tsunematsu). Flashbacks to their courtship and her eventual illness cut between a cross-continental journey that ambles along at the efficient but superficial pace of the film’s workman-like opening moments.
Akiko’s dying request to have her ashes scattered across the English lake where she vacationed as a child (and the backdrop to Beatrix Potter’s Peter Rabbit stories) forces an uneasy reconciliation between Ken and the couple’s son, Toshi (J-Pop singer Ryo Nishikido). Traveling with his own wife and child, Toshi wants to complete his mother’s wishes on a carefully laid out timetable; Ken, consumed by a more private, isolating grief, has the restless energy of the film’s title creature and ventures off by himself. A navigational mishap lands him on the doorstep of a kindly farmer and his daughter (Ciarán and Aoife Hinds). This portion thankfully avoids melodramatic detours but does little beyond provide an excuse to get an Oscar-nominated face in front of the camera.
While Lily and Hinds lend the production credibility, Cottontail struggles to distinguish itself as a worthwhile cinematic endeavor. Exceedingly straightforward, it humbly unfolds with neither pretense nor abstraction, skirting the edges of expressionism but never assuredly enough to surpass the conventions of a technically proficient yet unremarkable post-grad novella. Cottontail isn’t slight, though, because it lacks big-screen grandeur or dramatic stakes; the film is small because writer-director Patrick Dickinson doesn’t dig beneath the surface of its central conflict. The rift between father and son is communicated through mostly broad-coded differences: Kenzaburo carries the weary, unkempt demeanor of a daydreaming artist; Toshi has the side-parted coif and anal-retentive organizational skills of an MBA. Their estrangement could have been just as easily chalked up to opposite politics had Cottontail been constructed around Americans. That doesn’t mean the film is light on exposition, but Dickinson elides any specificity regarding their relationship in favor of detailing the relatively obvious dramatic beats to Ken and Akiko’s marriage. Despite arguably being the film’s second-most important character, Toshi ends up, as he does to his emotionally distant father, an afterthought.
Cottontail is a touching, fittingly brisk reverie about the places that remain hidden from us until we’re ready to find them. Unfortunately, the movie won’t linger much longer than the 90 minutes it takes the characters to reach their destination.
Director: Patrick Dickinson
Cast: Ciarán Hinds, Aoife Hinds, Isy Suttie
Writer: Patrick Dickinson
Producers: Carolyn Marks Blackwood, Gabrielle Tana, Hélène Théodoly
Music: Stefan Gregory
Cinematography: Mark Wolf
Editing: Andrew Jadavji
