Ozu's classic LATE SPRING's plot was reworked for LATE AUTUMN and here Ozu intermingles humour and drama equally.
At the seventh memorial of Mr Miwa's death, his three friends meet his widow Akiko and 24 year-old daughter Ayako. The men all courted Akiko when young and still think her attractive. They decide to meddle in their lives and find Ayako a husband.
Akiko teaches dressmaking and Ayako works in an office with her friend Yuriko and has no wish to get married and leave Akiko alone. But the plot continues: Mr Mamiya suggests Ayako meet his employee Goto and they start a tentative friendship.
The men decide if Akika remarries then Ayako need not worry. So widower Hirayama is chosen as her suitor but Ayako discovers the plot, misunderstanding that Akiko has agreed to re-marry.
Yuriko decides to sort the mess out but Akiko makes the ultimate decision...
Shelf or charity shop? A shelfer. Ozu-san
again provides a memorable insight into the unacknowledged changes that end a family unit. The initial air of a comedy slowly gives way to the sadness of the two women at being manipulated apart. Setsuko Hara delivers another wonderful Ozu performance as Akiko: eleven years before she had played the daughter not wanting to leave her widowed father in LATE SPRING but now she's the parent, always smiling and sad-eyed and whose final shot remains in the mind; saying volumes without saying a word. She is well partnered by Yoko Tsukasa as her daughter Ayako, she would go on to appear in Ozu's following film. Keiji Sada delivered another fine performance as the proposed husband Goto, while three Ozu veterens Shin Saburi, Nobuo Nakamura and Ryuji Kita are great as the meddling trio of friends. Ozu's favourite actor Chishu Ryu appears in a two scene cameo as Akiko's brother-in-law.
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