The Widow (2018)

"Widows grow flowers"

The Widow aka Yamome is a short film that has won several film festival awards. The poster and the awards intrigued me. I thought there would be a cruel or vengeful twist to the short. Instead, I was left wondering if I'd missed something.

Oohara Tokio plays Tanai Tomoko, a forty-year-old widow. She believes that widows can't be alone and need a man so she joins a dating site. The woman might want to find a hobby, make friends, or join a club. Instead, she meets Higuchi Satoshi who is 15 years her junior. He's handsome, charming, and has no problem letting her pay for their meals. Because Tanai is a bad drunk, she refrains from drinking on their dates. She buys him gifts and he suggests they move in together. Things take a downward turn from there.

Again, based on the poster, I was ready for the knives to come out. Instead I found the ending tepid at best. The short films it was up against, must not have been very strong. To quote Tanai, I wasn't angry or sad, just disappointed.

13 May 2025




Spoilery comments below---









The following comments are spoilery, if you are spoiler sensitive, please skip---

This short film was perplexing to me because Tanai never smiled and remained rigid through her dates. You would never know that she was serious enough to buy an apartment for them. Or gullible enough to hand over her various forms of identification to a man she'd only known for a few months. Higuchi spent their dinners talking about himself and taking phone calls---red flag warning signs. When Tanai realized she'd been had, she didn't get angry or sad. She wouldn't sue Higuchi because she didn't want him to hate her, after all, "Men will be men." For the love of Pete, that attitude was ridiculous and horribly outdated. She was 40, not 104. In the end, this came across as a Public Service Announcement warning widows about "commercial daters". I can only hope during the final scene when she did drink it meant she was going to give as well as she got to the next man and really cut loose.

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