Most critics receive Ozu’s final film with something close to reverence. The reviews describe it as mellow, tender and sad, with the familiar story of a widower marrying off his daughter carrying extra weight for being the last time Ozu told it. The praise clusters on tone: melancholy cut with dry, ironic humour, and a family drama in which father and daughter each give something up for the other. The colour also draws notice, a muted palette broken by careful splashes of red.
The spread is narrow, with no outright dissent. Slant Magazine is the coolest, finding a work of bemused resignation rather than tragedy, though it admires the hard-edged visual style. Eye for Film calls it touching but not among Ozu’s most memorable. The Evening Standard, at the other end, ranks it alongside Tokyo Story, and The New Yorker adds a note others pass over: that beneath the melancholy sits pointed social criticism of postwar nostalgia.