All of a Sudden

If you're wondering whether All of a Sudden will make you cry, the people who have seen it mostly say yes, just not in the way you might expect. At its Cannes premiere, Variety reported viewers weeping openly through the credits before a seven-minute standing ovation, the longest of the festival at that point. Critics have described sobbing while somehow still smiling as the end credits roll.

It's a long, patient film (just over three hours and fifteen minutes) about a nursing-home director and a Japanese theater director with terminal cancer who become fast, intense friends. Hamaguchi never milks the illness for cheap tears, and The Film Stage notes that for a film so full of grief it never once feels maudlin. Instead the tears sneak up on you through small acts of care, a scene with finger puppets, and a final chapter where, as The Playlist puts it, Mari's last line might leave you a puddle of bittersweet tears. Some viewers find it talky and drawn out, so if you're asking "is All of a Sudden a tearjerker", it's more of a slow, cleansing cry than a gut punch, and it hits hardest if you've ever cared for someone at the end of their life.