With ‘Monster,’ Hirokazu Kore-eda makes a welcome return to form

When Hirokazu Kore-eda’s “Shoplifters” won the Palme d’Or at the Cannes Film Festival in 2018, it was in recognition of a filmmaker working at the peak of his abilities. But as he recounts in the production notes for his latest movie, “Monster,” he’d begun to feel like he was running out of things to say.

That might explain why the director headed overseas for his next two films — to France for “The Truth” (2019) and then South Korea for “Broker” (2022) — with mixed results. His return to Japanese-language cinema is also a change of pace in that he’s working from someone else’s script, something he hasn’t done since “Maborosi” way back in 1995.

“Monster” teams him up with screenwriter Yuji Sakamoto, who’ll be familiar to Japanese audiences from both his extensive TV work and the 2021 romantic drama “We Made a Beautiful Bouquet.” Although the two men share a taste for complex, messy characters, Sakamoto takes a much more hands-on approach to storytelling.

While Kore-eda’s narratives tend to sneak up on you, letting the details accrue gradually, “Monster” moves at a brisker clip. It’s taut and cannily constructed, with snappy dialogue and a “Rashomon”-style structure that revisits events from the perspectives of different characters. (Sakamoto received the award for best screenplay at Cannes last weekend for his efforts.)

The opening chapter is devoted to Saori (Sakura Ando), an energetic single mother who starts to notice that her 11-year-old son, Minato (Soya Kurokawa), is acting strangely. Under duress, he confesses that he’s being bullied by his teacher, Hori (Eita Nagayama). However, when she takes her concerns to the school, she’s met with stilted apologies and stonewalling.

As Saori keeps pushing for answers, she only gets more questions: Why does the school’s narcotized principal, Fushimi (a superb Yuko Tanaka), keep giving her the run-around? Is Minato actually bullying his classmate, the cherubic and girlish Yori (Hiiragi Hinata)?

When we see the events again from Hori’s point of view, there’s a suggestion that the monster of the title may in fact be Saori. But then the film hones in on Minato and his relationship with Yori — furtive, conflicted, tender — and it becomes clear that there’s been something very different happening all along.

This final chapter of “Monster” is the richest and most rewarding; after the breathless nature of the earlier sections, the film seems to slow down, achieving something close to a state of grace. I almost wondered if we needed to get Saori and Hori’s sides of the story first, but they make the child’s-eye perspective all the more powerful. This tale of secrets and lies looks very different to the adults involved.

Sakamoto’s script has the narrative arc of a melodrama, and it’s easy to imagine a more heavy-handed director making a hash of the whole thing. Instead, Kore-eda underplays or truncates scenes that could have been set-pieces, while leaving more space for the quiet moments of revelation. The soundtrack, consisting of new and older material by the late Ryuichi Sakamoto, lends an added poignancy.

Although this is an uncharacteristic Kore-eda film in some respects, the way it leads you toward a deeper understanding of the characters is typical of the director’s staunch humanism. “Monster” may not be one of his best works, but after his middling overseas excursions, it feels like a return to form.