This is a beautiful mood piece that explores what the world might look like if the elderly were no longer valued.

Director Chie Hayakawa’s debut feature springboards from a real event in 2016 where a man massacred people at a Tokyo aged care home. We begin with some fleeting moments of this event with a radio bulletin identifying the problem of sustaining an ageing population. Plan 75 is the solution, a government program that provides incentives for people aged over 75 to volunteer to be euthanised. There are some perks – a great meal or a holiday, money, weekly 15-minute phone calls and the ability to pull out at any time.

Hayakawa allows us to watch what this world might be like by following three people. Michi (Chieko Baisho) is elderly but happy with her life until a job and apartment loss casts her adrift. Hiromu (Hayato Isomura) has the job of selling the plan and encourages people to apply until he finds out secrets that the government is hiding. Maria (Stefanie Arianne) is a Filipino mother drawn to the well-paid work of tending to the bodies in order to earn enough money for her daughter’s heart operation.

There is no judgement for any of the characters and no big dramatic arcs, just quiet observation of the moral choices these people face and the real tragedy of an ageing population – loneliness. There is a hint that a society that can accept this is one that is losing connection with humanity. Many people seem to be on the fringes, looking at a life of comfort or being able to afford hot soup that is out of their reach.

I found it poignant rather than depressing. There are no plays for your emotions just a lyrical drift through a reality that we all might face in one way or another.

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