Cannes Review: Hirokazu Kore-eda's 'Our Little Sister'

Even the gentlest caress too repetitively delivered can eventually cause abrasion. Japanese director Hirokazu Kore-eda's films, especially his recent string of honeyed, humanist explorations of childhoods, generational gaps and family dynamics, often have the feel of a hand on your shoulder, or a soft palm beneath your elbow, guiding you toward an ever-more-perfect sympathy with his finely wrought, desperately winning characters. And that sense of a careful human touch is one of many reasons to admire and enjoy the director's unshowy style. Certainly, his last films, the affecting, Cannes Jury Prize-winning "Like Father, Like Son," and the sublime and tiny "I Wish" both fit that pattern, in being tender investigations into familial bonds, both marked out by semi-miraculous child performances. But to say that "Our Little Sister" is a return to these themes is both praise and criticism: the lovely moments, the charming, held-in-check performances and the...