Like a sweet and sad Ghibli film where the present-day demon is indifference.

Takuya (Keitatsu Koshiyama) is a low-key misfit in rural Hokkaido. He stutters in class and is a dreamer, transfixed by falling snow when he issupposed to be playing baseball. He participates in sports but is the last to be chosen. When sidelined during ice hockey for general hopelessness, he becomes transfixed by Sakura (Kiara Takanashi), a young and accomplished figure skater. Her coach Arakawa (Sôsuke Ikematsu who you might recognise from Shoplifters or We Are Little Zombies) sees, and perhaps also sees something of himself in the boy. He helps him learn to figure skate after hours and then matches him up with Sakura to compete in paired ice dancing. 

Director Hiroshi Okuyama also acted as editor and cinematographer and the feel and look reminded me of a Ghibli film come to life in bleached pastels. The young actors’ dialogue is deliberately unscripted and the result is a desultory realism that is often endearing.

That Arakawa is gay is revealed unobtrusively. He is perhaps not completely happy with what might be a backwater life with his partner who runs a petrol station. He was once a skating star, a life that seems distant from his reality.

Although on the surface, this seems to be about the two youngsters finding their way – and you will see it called a coming of age drama – it’s really about Arakawa. I think the audience is waiting for the other shoe to drop for him and for his life to be upended. That it happens with such a lack of care and with no recourse says much about cultural homophobia. Okuyama lets us linger on how little Takuya and Sakura are affected, their essential privilege protecting them from such a tragedy.