Plan 75

As ​’70s Hol­ly­wood sci-fi spec­tac­u­lars Soy­lent Green and Logan’s Run sug­gest­ed, the very idea that a soci­ety might deal with its pop­u­la­tion chal­lenges by elim­i­nat­ing the elder­ly could only real­ly be dra­mat­i­cal­ly work­able in a far-off future dystopia. Mean­while in the real world, as of 2023, we find the Japan­ese gov­ern­ment pub­licly admit­ting it’s fac­ing a loom­ing eco­nom­ic cri­sis, giv­en the huge per­cent­age of old peo­ple liv­ing longer and need­ing care, and the small­er por­tion of tax­pay­ers pick­ing up the tab for it all.

The Tokyo author­i­ties have just announced a scheme to increase the birth-rate by pro­vid­ing finan­cial induce­ments for start­ing a fam­i­ly, but per­haps they could just as eas­i­ly have opt­ed for Plan 75, the nation­al euthana­sia pro­gramme laid out in this wor­ry­ing­ly con­vinc­ing drama.

The film’s sooth­ing pub­lic infor­ma­tion cam­paign makes it all sound so straight­for­ward and sen­si­ble. Remov­ing the exist­ing ban on assist­ed dying, the author­i­ties can now allow all over-sev­en­ty-fives to take the stress and guess­work out of their twi­light years by sign­ing up to pain­less­ly end it all in pur­pose-built facil­i­ties. All for free, and with a mod­est pay­ment pro­vid­ed so you could treat your­self to, say, a deluxe sushi set before you depart. The poster graph­ics cheer­i­ly include a lit­tle smile motif, and there’s also the farewell pho­to, expressed in Eng­lish – because if you want to sell any­thing in Japan, an Eng­lish-lan­guage catch­phrase is the way to go.

So far, so ook­i­ly per­sua­sive, and the first hour of Chie Hayakawa’s film cer­tain­ly casts a gen­tle, delib­er­ate­ly-paced spell, as we get to know a gang of old girls with vary­ing atti­tudes towards the Plan, espe­cial­ly Chieko Basho’s fierce­ly inde­pen­dent type, who is essen­tial­ly forced into sign­ing up due to her strait­ened finan­cial cir­cum­stances and lack of fam­i­ly ties.

Which gets us to the movie’s most touch­ing moments, as she strikes up a sup­port­ive friend­ship with the tele­work­er assigned to keep her on-mes­sage, and who tear­ful­ly reminds her that she does indeed have the right to opt out at any moment. As the sto­ry construction’s ensem­ble approach broad­ens out, you get the sense Hayakawa real­ly want­ed to make a film about the pos­si­ble bonds between the gen­er­a­tions pro­vid­ing an evi­dent anti­dote to society’s seem­ing will­ing­ness to throw seniors on the scrapheap.

It’s sub­tly affect­ing, as far as it goes, but its sor­ta sci-fi bliss-out leaves some key ques­tions exas­per­at­ing­ly unex­plored. There’s no place here for the strick­en and ail­ing who might find Plan 75 a mer­ci­ful release, for exam­ple, nor indeed does the mate­r­i­al ever get to grip with the Japan-spe­cif­ic suf­fo­cat­ing group­think which presents a self-sac­ri­fic­ing injec­tion as a glo­ri­ous con­tri­bu­tion to the nation’s future prosperity.

Qui­et­ly deter­mined to stand up for the individual’s right to choose, and to eschew high-con­cept grand­stand­ing, the film’s thor­ough­go­ing under­state­ment has a lot going for it, but allows cred­i­bil­i­ty to slack­en notice­ably in the third act, leav­ing us too rather much room to con­tem­plate its sins of omission.

Lit­tle White Lies is com­mit­ted to cham­pi­oning great movies and the tal­ent­ed peo­ple who make them.

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