Sweet Bean

Its sentimentality is tempered by the elegant restraint of the fine lead performances.

Ms. Kawase's sweet, slow film -- very slow, I'm obliged to say -- becomes a meditation on solitary lives lived at the margins of society; on old age, and on the urgency of telling our stories, which may sometimes include recipes.

Ultimately Kawase is more interested in charting emotional and sensory landscapes than in thinking through any narrative thread, yet there's something to be said for the movie's sincerity and simple beauty.

Kawase handles the material delicately and skillfully, and Kirin - a one-time ingenue actress whose first important film was in one of the early "Tora-san" movies - hits all the right notes.

A delicate little fable that creeps up on you. It seems slight at first, but it's held together by a performance from the veteran actress Kirin Kiki

The movie, beautifully shot and acted, earns its ultimate sense of hope by confronting real heartbreak head-on, and with compassion.

Sweet Bean is a film that does its conventions right but gives nothing impactful as a result.

Sweet Bean senses how even the tiniest change in the basic ingredients of one's life can yield considerable rewards.

Echoes of classic Japanese cinema resound all over Sweet Bean, but its tugs at the heartstrings feel calculated in a way that Ozu's and Naruse's never did.

Sweet Bean's gentle, quiet drama shares DNA with the work of Kawase's compatriot, Hirokazu Koreeda. Sweet by name, sweet by nature.

A subtle treat, Sweet Bean is an unusual and interesting gentle pleasure.