Lily Franky

Osamu Shibata's affability in Shoplifters (2018) is part of what makes him an unsettling father figure. Lily Franky lets us enjoy his company while leaving reasons to question his judgement plainly in view. We warmed to Osamu, then felt uneasy about how readily we had done so, because the performance makes his affection so persuasive. Franky gives us a man worth paying attention to, even when we would be reluctant to follow his lead.

His collaboration with Hirokazu Kore-eda took hold with Like Father, Like Son (2013), in which he played Yūdai Saiki. Our Little Sister (2015) and After the Storm (2016) continued the association before his lead in Shoplifters. These domestic stories offer a useful route into an actor frequently cast as ordinary or working-class family men. Kore-eda gives his warmth something useful to do: in Shoplifters, it helps explain the appeal of a household whose arrangements we have reason to question.

Playing opposite Sakura Ando as Nobuyo Shibata also keeps Franky's work from becoming a solo display. Ando allows tenderness and self-interest to belong to the same person, and he gives her an equally fallible figure to work alongside. Neither actor makes the moral complications look like an acting exercise. Their shared restraint is a large part of why Shoplifters can be tender and funny without making the household reassuring. Franky's contribution depends on fitting into that company; the lead role does not require him to seem more important than everyone else.

He has described the kind of person films often overlook: “Ordinary guys don’t really become main characters. But ordinary people usually have something that’s not likable about them.” Shoplifters makes good use of that interest in an ordinary man's faults, though a few stretches linger after their point has landed. Begin there, but allow Franky time to complicate your first impression.