After the Storm

Ryota is a struggling novelist who works at a detective agency for "research," gambles compulsively and tries to cope with his estrangement from his ex-wife and the son he cherishes. Desperate to get money for the child support that he owes upon threat of losing visitation rights, he visits his aging mother (the wonderful Kilin Kiki), who has no illusions about her son or her late husband, himself a less-than-successful dreamer. But when a typhoon sweeps in and the onetime family finds itself stuck together at her house, Ryoto may just have a chance at reconciliation and redemption.