'Honesty," Billy Joel famously lamented in song, "is hardly ever heard." The characters of Rikiya Imaizumi's ensemble drama "Their Distance" ("Shiranai, Futari") seem to have been listening: They are honest to a fault with each other about their feelings, even ones that hurt their listener.
Is this a generational thing? Seeing this well-crafted if somewhat wispy film at last year's Tokyo International Film Festival, I remembered being more guarded — or, shall we say, devious? — in my 20s. I didn't want to break up with someone because I had a passing fancy for someone else — at least right away. Yes, "devious" is the word we're looking for.
The story begins with Leon (Ren of the South Korean boy band Nu'est), a blonde-haired, angelic-looking shoe repairman who eats his lunch of homemade rice balls alone every day at the same park bench. Why the avoidance of human contact? Two years ago Leon saw a man on a bicycle being hit by a car. The man survived, but Leon still blames himself for watching and not acting. Then one day he finds a drunken woman (Hanae Kan) on his bench — and they lock eyes.