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Still the Water

Still the Water

Drama · Romance · 2014

On the Japanese island of Amami, despite lacking parental guidance, Kaito and his girlfriend Kyoko try to find their place in the world. While Kaito suffers from the absence of his father, who moved to Tokyo after his birth, Kyoko must come to grips with her mother’s terminal illness.

Movie details

Still the Water

2014 Drama · Romance 2h 1m

Critical arithmetic

The consensus, allegedly.

IMDb

6.7 / 10

3.3K votes

Rotten Tomatoes

52 %

Tomatometer

Metacritic

58 / 100

Metascore

TMDB

6.7 / 10

Community rating

External scores via OMDb · CC BY-NC 4.0. Values normalized for display; availability varies by title.

On the Japanese island of Amami, despite lacking parental guidance, Kaito and his girlfriend Kyoko try to find their place in the world. While Kaito suffers from the absence of his father, who moved to Tokyo after his birth, Kyoko must come to grips with her mother’s terminal illness.

CriticWise case file

What this film says about your taste.

Not a recommendation score. A measure of how closely the film’s taste signals resemble yours.

The archetype split

Who fights over Still the Water?

The split comes from the same five-axis model used by the test, not audience ratings or review sentiment.

Taste neighbourhood

Nearby on the taste map.

TMDB supplies the candidates. CriticWise reorders them by craft, strangeness, prestige, emotion, and pace.

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Where it lives

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Names above the title

The people responsible.

Directed by

Naomi Kawase

Written by

Naomi Kawase

Nijiro Murakami

Nijiro Murakami

Kaito

Junko Abe

Junko Abe

Kyoko

Miyuki Matsuda

Miyuki Matsuda

Isa

Tetta Sugimoto

Tetta Sugimoto

Toru

Makiko Watanabe

Makiko Watanabe

Misaki

Jun Murakami

Jun Murakami

Atsushi

Hideo Sakaki

Hideo Sakaki

Teacher

Court is in session

Put Still the Water on trial.

Two incompatible taste archetypes. One film. Read the arguments, then issue a completely binding cultural ruling.

The defence The Prestige Tourist

“Sincerity is not manipulation.”

The film risks embarrassment to make emotion communal, and that openness is harder than fashionable detachment.

The prosecution The Popcorn Loyalist

“The strings are showing.”

Every cue tells you exactly what to feel and when, leaving sentiment to do the work character should have done.