Get the latest gossip

‘My Sunshine’ Review: Hiroshi Okuyama’s Second Feature Traces a Gentle Trajectory Through Changing Seasons


Hiroshi Okuyama's Cannes entry 'My Sunshine' is a beautifully shot fable focused on two young figure-skaters tentatively navigating new emotions.

Set on a small Japanese island, the film’s slight but sweet narrative follows a quartet of characters — young hockey player Takuya (Keitatsu Koshiyama), proficient skater Sakura (Kiara Nakanishi), figure-skating tutor Arakawa (Sōsuke Ikematsu) and his boyfriend (Ryûya Wakaba) — as they navigate subtly shifting interpersonal dynamics while a cold but beautiful winter waxes and wanes around them. Whether Takuya and Sakura will do well in the competition is a bit of an afterthought compared to the gradual tracing of the companionable bond that forms between them, or observing the mellowing climate as the island slowly emerges from winter into spring. That’s not true, but Okuyama seems to have discovered something of that order of pretty, pale, ever-shifting pastel colours for his compositions of snow and ice, shimmering subtly with faint blushing pinks, delicate mauves and barely-there frosted sky blues.

Get the Android app

Or read this on Variety

Read more on:

Photo of hiroshi okuyama’s

hiroshi okuyama’s