The opening of Yuki Tanada's new film "My Dad and Mr. Ito" promises a comedy of the quirky family variety.
The 34-year-old Aya (Juri Ueno) and her 54-year-old lover (Lily Franky), whom she calls "Ito-san" (Mr. Ito), are living in age-inappropriate, tight-budgeted bliss when Aya's crotchety father (Tatsuya Fuji) shows up one day and announces that he has come to live with them.
Laughs follow, mostly prompted by Dad, who starts gruffly interrogating Aya and Ito as soon as he walks through the door. But similar to Tanada's earlier films, most recently her road movie "Romance" ("Round Trip Heart," 2015), these three characters are not gag machines but flawed individuals with real-life problems shared by millions of their contemporaries. Beneath its light comic surface, the film is serious, if never sentimental.