After screening at the 2026 Cannes Film Festival, Ryusuke Hamaguchi’s All of a Sudden walked away with tons of praise and a Best Actress award for the two leads, Virginie Efira and Tao Okamoto, the first such win for a Japanese actress. The movie officially premiered in Japanese theaters on June 19, finally giving regular audiences a chance to see for themselves if All of a Sudden lived up to the hype. Even with a runtime of 196 minutes, screenings continue to be packed as people discover one of the most singular Japanese movies in recent memory. Slight spoilers ahead but, ultimately, this isn’t a movie you watch for the specific plot beats but rather for the following elements:
An Anti-Capitalist Case for Dignity
It’s impossible to have an anti-capitalist “interpretation” of All of a Sudden. That would be like saying that the new Fist of the North Star anime is “about fighting.” It’s not a critical reading you arrive at after careful analysis. It’s simply the plot and the story, sitting right there in the open, not hiding between the lines.
All of a Sudden is the tale of Marie-Lou (Efira) a care worker introducing Humanitude to a Parisian nursing home that she runs. A comprehensive care methodology developed in France almost 50 years ago, Humanitude focuses on the principles of See, Touch, Talk and Stand to help foster deeper connection between people with dementia and those taking care of them while preserving the former’s dignity. Marie-Lou constantly fights against practices like trying to keep the residents in bed all day, handling them roughly when they get confused, or washing them impersonally “like vegetables.”
When a nurse or some executive comes at her with talks of wastefulness by spending too much time on a single patient, what they are really saying is that “love and care are inefficient.” But the people against Humanitude are not coming from a place of hate. Their worries are practical and boil down to budget and burnout concerns. Still, they ultimately ignore the fundamental premise that what they’re denying is care for fellow human beings. Don’t they deserve dignity? Only near-fatal capitalism-poisoning could make an otherwise seemingly rational person argue against that.
Caring is a natural idea. Efficiency-obsessed nursing is an unnatural feature of capitalism that needs to be enforced by cynics and money people. Without them, there would be no need to defend Humanitude. It’d just happen. At one point, a character literally writes most of that out in the form of diagrams on a whiteboard. Director Ryusuke Hamaguchi apparently really wanted people to get that message. It’s not a particularly subtle message but it’s delivered so deftly, it feels like a slap to the face meant to wake you up.
“All of a Sudden” directed by Ryusuke Hamaguchi © Festival de Cannes
Romance Without Eroticism and Death Without Sentimentality
All of a Sudden hits its stride when Marie-Lou meets Tao Okamoto’s Mari — a theater director and dramatist dying of cancer — and a kind of romance develops between them. But not a typical movie romance. They never kiss or express feelings of physical attraction to one another but they continuously share scenes of deep intimacy without eroticism. From the moment Marie-Lou sees Mari’s play and recognizes a similar soul in her, the two bare their innermost thoughts, feelings, dreams and fears, exposing themselves in front of each other more than if they just got naked.
The love that Marie-Lou and Mari share is based primarily on recognizing the other’s humanity, which is a central theme running through Marie-Lou’s championing of more personal care. The two become incredibly close very quickly because they talk to each other, underscoring the power of one of the pillars of Humanitude. The two leads speak alternatively in French and Japanese, with both actresses having learned the other’s language for the movie. Through this, All of a Sudden shows that overcoming barriers of communication is worth it because from that one simple thing, beautiful things are born.
The movie also does fascinating things with the topic of cancer and death. Japanese cinema and TV love making audiences cry at human drama. With a good enough director and cast, the attempt may hope to not feel too heavy-handed. There are exceptions to that, of course, and All of a Sudden is thankfully one of them.
Like the character herself, Mari’s death is complex. She admits to being scared, but she never panics. By the end, she’s in a lot of pain, but meds help and her pain is never milked for cheap tears. Her last weeks on Earth aren’t filled with tearful goodbyes or trying to make up for lost time or get over any regrets. In many scenes, it’s easy to forget she even has cancer. In others, the disease dominates the film, which nonetheless still concludes with Mari admitting that life is good and the world is a great place, and it’s all because of the little moments.
When You Can’t Do Anything, You Do What You Can
A question asked throughout the movie is how do you make the impossible possible. And the refreshingly honest answer is that you don’t. Some things are just insurmountable, like death or human greed. It’s important to know how to spot those things but it’s equally important to not let them get you down. Because even if something is impossible, like toppling the system that Marie-Lou is fighting against, it’s still crucial to do as much as you can. It’s vital that you try even if you know you won’t accomplish all of your goals because something is always better than nothing.
This is illustrated beautifully by the movie featuring many unlit scenes where you can barely see the actors, which are suddenly cut through by little sources of light: a moonbeam, a flashlight etc. Throughout the film, you constantly see little pools of light in the darkness, tiny bright spots of warmth and safety in an otherwise scary void. They never dispel the dark completely, but they are always welcomed breaks from the inky, oppressive nothingness, and it’s impossible not to look at these images as deeply intentional.
Giving it your all and fighting the impossible fight will not change the world. But it might touch one person, and for that person, their entire world will change. It feels unfair to the movie to try and pin one main message or theme on it, especially given how many of them it’s already juggling. But “Try” would be a top contender for that title, underscored by the film’s visuals, always showing what the movie is telling, and what the movie is telling is always quietly profound. From a purely technical point of view, All of a Sudden is a perfect film, utilizing dialogue and visuals to their full effect. Is it also that good from a story and plot perspective? Go see the film and judge for yourself.
