Shell and Joint

(2019)

★ 5.3 IMDb · 6 votes

Genres: Drama

Year: 2019

Runtime: 154 мин

Country: Japan

Director: 平林勇

Cast: 筒井真理子, 堀部圭亮, 佐藤藍子, 北川弘美, 久住小春, 工藤綾乃, 東加奈子, 野島直人, 真柴幸平, 長谷川葉生

Plot

Nitobe and Sakamoto are childhood friends who now work at the front desk of a capsule hotel. Nitobe has a particular fondness for philosophy and crustaceans. Sakamoto, meanwhile, is fixated on suicide. The capsule hotel draws a variety of guests, including a Finnish mother who has lost her child, a fugitive woman, and a researcher studying Daphnia. None of their lives ever intersect. They exist, but never cross, like cells in a capsule hotel. The themes of life and death are explored through a fragmentary view of the characters’ lives.