Cannes Film Festival liked doing things in pairs in 2026. It jointly awarded All of a Sudden’s two lead actresses, the French Virginie Efira and the Japanese Tao Okamoto, the Best Actress prize. (Ms. Okamoto beginning her acceptance speech by referring to herself as a “mediocre Japanese actress” prompted a finger-wag from director Ryûsuke Hamaguchi.) However the award is largely for All of a Sudden’s scope and ambition and how these two actresses took on their impossible parts. Regrettably all their hard work was not done for a particularly good movie.
Marie-Lou (Ms. Efira) owns a Parisian nursing home, where the residents enjoy an ethos known as ‘Humanitude.’ The process involves emphasis on eye contact, non-threatening touch, constant narration of interactions, and ‘verticality,’ aka the residents being expected to walk as much as possible. Marie-Lou enthuses over this philosophy because she thinks it enables people to live as their true selves for as long as possible. Unfortunately this includes a high element of risk from falls and similar, which is a source of dispute between Marie-Lou and her staff. One afternoon Marie-Lou is caught in a rainstorm in a park with a disabled and non-verbal young man, whose name we eventually learn is Tomoki (Kodai Kurosawa). Shortly after he is found by his grandfather Goro (Kyôzô Nagatsuka) and Mari (Ms. Okamoto) and the three adults have a nice chat. It turns out Mari is a theatre director and Goro is a performance artist, who have brought their show about the opportunities inherent in aging from Kyoto to Paris. When Marie-Lou suddenly finds herself with a free evening she goes along to see it. We see the show too, in full. It is followed by a Q&A (and in proof that this movie is a peculiar fantasy, nobody from the audience bolts before that Q&A starts) in which we learn Marie-Lou speaks fluent Japanese. In front of the other audience members she and Mari have a discussion in that language that is life-changing for both of them.
Unfortunately it is not so riveting for the rest of us. If the core of your movie must be people giving powerpoint presentations about the evils of capitalism to each other, you should be working very, very hard to make those conversations interesting. If, instead, the characters have to ask each other if they are being boring, things are probably not working as well as you intended. The very long runtime would have been an awful lot more enjoyable if the incredible connection between Mari and Marie-Lou involved them doing stuff instead of just talking. We learn a lot about their ideas but almost nothing about them as people. This is a peculiar thing to complain about when most movies don’t remember women have any brains at all, but the brains are all anybody here has. Some of this criticism is unfair – there are some beautiful and brilliantly staged shots of them walking around Paris as they chat – but there’s just too much of it. So, so much too much of it. All Marie-Lou and Mari’s conversations about how aging and capitalism are tied together in keeping people stuck, afraid and unwell are important and would have been, in smarter hands, very interesting.
But All of a Sudden is a movie about and for intellectuals, who like words over action. An action movie about justice for the elderly, like say The Beekeeper, is aimed at a very different audience and garners a very different reception. Movies like that might make millions, but rarely play the festival circuit, and their actors (like Jason Statham) rarely win prestigious awards. Considering that Mr. Hamaguchi’s previous film, Drive My Car, got its balance between grief and violence right, it’s a surprise that All of a Sudden is so indulgent of its appetites for discussion. The award from Cannes will spark greater curiosity into its message, but be warned that you might not care for three hours and sixteen minutes of it.
One final thing: the end of the film taking place in France instead of Japan is clearly because of the filmmaking logistics instead of what’s best for the characters.
All of a Sudden (Soudain) recently played at the Cannes Film Festival.
Learn more about the film at the Cannes site for the title.
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