Call Me Chihiro (2023)
Director: Rikiya Imaizumi
Screenwriters: Rikiya Imaizumi, Kaori Sawai
Starring: Kasumi Arimura, Lily Franky, Jun Fubuki, Hana Toyoshima, Tetta Shimada
Rikiya Imaizumi’s 2023 Netflix original, Call Me Chihiro, adapts Hiyoyuki Yasuda’s manga into a contemplative chamber piece about reinvention, loneliness, and the fragile bonds we form to survive. Kasumi Arimura plays Chihiro, a woman who has left sex work behind and finds refuge in a quiet seaside town where she sells bento and drifts through days that feel at once simple and unsettled. The film is gentle in tone but layered in feeling, privileging mood and small gestures over plot mechanics.
The publicity emphasizes Chihiro as an unapologetic former sex worker, but Imaizumi’s portrayal softens that description: Chihiro is less combative than detached. She carries no visible shame, yet she also doesn’t loudly reclaim or politicize her past. In the sheltered coastal community she inhabits, stigma is muted and the film treats her former life as a biographical detail rather than the sum of her identity. This choice places the focus on Chihiro’s present emotional state — a person who seems perpetually half-asleep in life, moving through scenes with a polite, almost sleepy disengagement.
Kasumi Arimura’s performance anchors the film. She conveys a consistent interiority, often reacting to events with a composed stillness that reads as both resilience and emotional arrest. Whether she’s awkwardly apologizing for an unauthorized babysitting, spectating a bar scuffle, or participating in darker, more unsettling moments, Arimura keeps Chihiro measured and quietly complex. This restraint is effective for the film’s aims, although some viewers may find the coolness isolating rather than endearing.
Chihiro’s daily companions underline her dislocation. She spends time with teenage Okaji (Hana Toyoshima) and schoolboy Makoto (Tetta Shimada), relationships that blur age and authority. Rather than stepping into a maternal or mentoring role, Chihiro exists alongside these younger characters as a peer of sorts, someone whose emotional development has stalled. Their interactions occasionally verge on unsettling, but they also form the core of the film’s meditation on chosen family.
One recurring dynamic involves Okaji’s fascination with Chihiro. Her voyeurism and the habit of photographing Chihiro can be read as a metaphor for control, desire, or the ways people try to possess one another through images. Yet the film never fully interrogates this obsession; the accumulation of photos remains unexplained. That ambiguity can be intentional — a way to keep the viewer slightly off balance — but it also leaves an intriguing psychological thread underdeveloped.
Food is a central motif: bento boxes, rice, and simple shared meals become symbols for nourishment beyond the body. The act of preparing and sharing food in the film articulates care, routine, and connection. Conversations held over dinner or bentos reveal the characters’ needs for attention, recognition, and steadiness. These small rituals serve as antidotes to the characters’ rootlessness and provide a visual and emotional throughline that animates otherwise languid scenes.
The broader thematic focus is on found family — the people we choose, or who choose us, when biological families fail. Parents in the film are often absent, neglectful, or unable to meet their children’s emotional needs, and Chihiro’s ragged, improvised household is built from those left adrift. While some parallels to other acclaimed films about chosen families are inevitable, Imaizumi’s approach is softer and less grand, preferring intimate snapshots over sweeping social commentary. The result is a film that feels like a series of closely observed vignettes rather than a tightly plotted drama.
Stylistically, the film leans into indie sensibilities: unhurried pacing, long takes, and an emphasis on atmosphere. For some viewers this mood-driven method is rewarding; for others it may feel indulgent. The middle section drifts, and the overall runtime could have benefited from tighter editing — a brisker pace would sharpen the emotional stakes without sacrificing the film’s contemplative spirit. By the final act, Chihiro has made small ripples in the lives around her, but her own arc feels restrained. She does not undergo a dramatic transformation, and the ending opts for gentle realism over tidy catharsis.
Overall, Call Me Chihiro is a quietly observant film that excels in mood and performance, especially Arimura’s layered portrayal. It thoughtfully explores themes of belonging, escape, and the private ways people seek comfort. Despite moments that could have used clearer development and a tendency toward meandering, the film offers a sincere, humane look at intimacy and survival. Viewers who appreciate character-focused, low-key dramas will find much to admire here, even if the emotional payoff is sometimes muted.
Score: 17/24