Renoir – first-look review

An 11-year-old girl attempts to find a way to cope with her father's death in Chie Hayakawa's second feature.

Death seems to be an omniscient spectre and perennial fascination for promising filmmaker Chie Hayakawa. In her debut Plan 75, Japan’s elderly are encouraged to sign up for a euthanisation programme in an attempt to curb the country’s aging population. Dying is sold and commodified, and is as normalised as groceries. Though not remotely as dystopian, there’s a throughline to Hayakawa’s follow-up in its relationship with mortality: that death has become so embedded in everyday life that it’s almost unremarkable.

For 11-year-old Fuki (Yui Suzuki), she’s lacking the road map for grief when time is running out for her terminally ill father (a little-seen but always devastating Lily Franky). Her mother (Hikari Ishida) is so occupied with her busy career during 1980s Japan’s economic boom that she approaches funeral arrangements with the casualness of a business call. In one quietly devastating scene, Fuki’s father turns on the light of a closet to see mourning clothes hanging by the doorway. It’s as if his family is already so prepared for his imminent passing that he’s already gone.

Crucially, Renoir is framed through Fuki’s perspective, carried by the revelatory newcomer Suzuki. Grief is a difficult feeling to process, especially for a young child, and without anyone to lean on, she retreats to her own fantasies. Dreams collide with reality so frequently that it’s hard to parse what’s real in Fuki’s world – and Hayakawa’s restrained mode of filmmaking doesn’t differentiate between the two either. Inspired by a magician on TV, Fuki even begins testing her abilities in telepathy and hypnotism: perhaps magic can make sense of her situation.

Fuki’s own feelings about death seem almost apathetic – her teacher alerts her mother that she’s written an essay titled “I Want to be an Orphan” – but even then, she doesn’t want to experience it alone. Left to her own devices almost everyday, Fuki searches for connection in ways that swing from innocent to dangerous. She looks to classmates, neighbours, and art from the titular French impressionist. Later, she strikes up a conversation with a groomer over a dating phone line. Hayakawa treats it all with such a delicate hand that it can verge on becoming too light a touch. The film’s heavy ideas can feel like they’re not being given the weight they need, always keeping the emotion at a distance.

Still, few films have depicted coming of age quite like this. The first promotional stills released in the lead-up to Cannes are a clever misdirect: one features Fuki smiling and dancing against a clear blue sky, and you’d be forgiven for believing you’re in for a sweet journey of self discovery. Renoir does retain that summery bright colour palette, creating a startling contrast to the core darkness that permeates Fuki’s isolation. It’s a strange and oftentimes brutal portrait of a singularly curious child, left to wrestle with grief in her imagination when real life can’t provide the answers.

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Published 18 May 2025

Tags: Chie Hayakawa