I Wish (2011)

I WISH  (2011)  ¢ ¢ ¢ 1/2
    D: Hirokazu Kore-eda
    Koki Maeda, Ohshirô Maeda, Joe Odagiri,
    Nene Ohtsuka, Kirin Kiki, Isao Hashizume
Three Japanese schoolboys skip out of class and embark on an adventure, believing (or at least hoping) that if they go to the spot where two bullet trains cross paths and make a wish as the trains go by, a miracle will happen. One of them wants to play baseball like Ichiro. One wants to marry the school librarian. One wants to reunite his family. It can take a while to adjust to the pace of this. The storytelling is leisurely, as Kore-eda's camera follows the boys around, showing how they live, what they think and talk about, and what they do. You wonder sometimes if the kids are even acting, or just being themselves. It's a sweet little glimpse at what it's like to be a kid, in that fleeting time you get when you really are a kid, old enough to be doing stuff on your own, but before hormones take over, and it's time to start to grow up, and everything goes to hell.