Synopsis
A lighthearted take on director Yasujiro Ozu’s perennial theme of the challenges of intergenerational relationships, Good Morning tells the story of two young boys who stop speaking in protest after their parents refuse to buy a television set. Ozu weaves a wealth of subtle gags through a family portrait as rich as those of his dramatic films, mocking the foibles of the adult world through the eyes of his child protagonists. Shot in stunning color and set in a suburb of Tokyo where housewives gossip about the neighbors’ new washing machine and unemployed husbands look for work as door-to-door salesmen, this charming comedy refashions Ozu’s own silent classic I Was Born, But . . . to gently satirize consumerism in postwar Japan.
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Cast
- Keiji SadaHeiichiro Fukui
- Yoshiko KugaSetsuko Arita
- Chishū RyūKeitaro Hayashi
- Kuniko MiyakeTamiko Hayashi
- Haruko SugimuraKikue Haraguchi
- Kôji ShitaraMinoru Hayashi
- Masahiko ShimazuIsamu Hayashi
- Kyōko IzumiMidori Maruyama
- Taiji TonoyamaPushy Man
- Toyo TakahashiShige Okubo
Recommendations
- 100
Chicago Tribune
Ozu's informal '50s-set remake of "I Was Born, But . . . ." Not as lyrical as its model, but just as penetrating, this one, made in bright colors and flat surfaces that suggest the era's television dramas, has another obstreperous brother-combo who stage gas-expelling contests and wage a war to get, coincidentally, a family TV. [25 Nov 2005, p.C4] - 88
Slant Magazine
This profound film reveals that nothing is below the purview of existential contemplation, even all matters of flatulence, and words as simple as “Good morning” are revealed to contain fathomless multitudes. - 88
Chicago Reader
Devoted to both the profound necessity and the sublime silliness of gratuitous social interchange, OHAYO is a rather subtler and grander work than might appear at first. - 83
The A.V. Club
A knowing comedy, Good Morning isn't one of Ozu's indisputable masterpieces, but it serves as a fine example of everything he does well. - 83
The Film Stage
Ozu spins a social and emotional tapestry from a 1950s Tokyo suburb in which two young brothers, desperate for their own TV set, take a vow of silence in protest against the frivolous speech of adult society. - 80
The New Yorker
Ozu makes silence his very subject. In warm and humorous scenes, it emerges as the abyss of the generation gap; but here, Ozu stands his own ironic inversions on their head. - 80
Time Out
A brimming sense of life, in other words, gradually transforms the small talk into a richly devious portrait of humanity being human. - 80
TV Guide Magazine
Good Morning is thoroughly enjoyable comedy that, somewhat atypically for director Yasujiro Ozu, is sunny throughout, without the darkness or sense of melancholy that rests under the surface of most of this gentle director's work.
