The reviews are unanimously positive, with praise centred on Ozu’s ability to make ordinary domestic moments carry deep feeling. Most critics find melancholy, affection and resignation beneath the film’s surface calm, crediting its precise compositions, minimal camera movement and patient attention to everyday behaviour. The performances of Chishū Ryū and Setsuko Hara draw particular praise from Time Out, while the wider consensus values the care with which Ozu observes emotions his characters cannot easily express.
The differences concern the degree of enthusiasm rather than any substantial rejection of the film. Time Out notes that some social customs may feel less familiar than those in other Ozu films. Empire offers the most qualified response, admiring the direction and acting but finding the emotional impact short of Tokyo Story’s. Elsewhere, restraint is consistently treated as a strength: the reviews stress how much feeling the film conveys without overt display.