Japanese director Hirokazu Koreeda's 'Nobody Knows' is a contemporary drama involving a mothers struggle to cope with life with her children.The mother, Keiko, has little money and crams everyone into the tiny apartment. Akira (Yua Yagira) is the oldest child of about 12 years old, who is the only visible child to the outside world. He runs all the errands and keeps his three younger siblings fed whilst his mother works. The three children never leave the apartment, none of them go to school.Keiko spends less and less time at home, often leaving for long stretches and leaving money behind for the children to fend for themselves. Completely self-absorbed, Keiko is obsessed with her own happiness and clings to her fading youth. Eventually, she disappears completely, to live with another man.Kept in the dark for so long, Akira has no choice but to continue to act as the father, his slightly younger sister Kyoko (Ayu Kitaura) becomes the mother-figure for the youngsters Yuki (Momoko Shimizu) and Shigeru (Hiei Kimura). Apparently each child is fathered by a different man, and none have any responsibility for any of the children. The children can't even go to the authorities because they will all be split up. Its a heartbreaking situation to watch these abandoned children try and hold things together as a family, in an adult world they are ill suited to cope with, however hard they try. The tragedy is of a society which doesn't want to know, and allowed it to happen.Yagira gives a remarkable performance, a conduit for his siblings to the outside world, observing and processing everything around him in the hope that they can all survive. He wants to live life like any other child, not just to survive. He meets other children, who live the life he should be living, and desperately wants to be a part of this enticing world. Not all is as appears, when he befriends a girl of a similar age who is being bullied and spends little time at home. Hers is another story which Japanese society doesn't talk about.Koreeda doesn't just explore the children's dilemma, in a wider context we look at parenting (or lack of) and the attitudes of Japanese society towards the young. We see children wasting their lives, unloved and undetected, whether parented or not. Of course, Akira and his siblings' situation is the worst kind of abandonment where there is little hope. 'Nobody Knows' is an absorbing and moving film, a heartbreaking study of children in an adult world which remains with you long after the film is over.

'Nobody Knows' is a deeply moving film. It sheds light on a disturbing reality that we may not be aware of or may not even want to think about but definitely exists in the world we live in. The plot says it all: A group of children try to stick together and live a 'normal' life after their so-called mother leaves them one day, never to return. I was amazed by how well those small kids played their respective roles in such a serious film. If you like thought-provoking films, you should definitely watch this one. In this day and age when teenagers throw tantrums at their parents over petty issues, this film will make you feel lucky that you even have a parent or a guardian who looks after you and cares about you.The film is also aptly titled as despite the inconceivable situations that these kids have been through, you never know what the future holds for them but you definitely hope things somehow get better.

This story of four children abandoned in a Tokyo apartment by their mother tried my patience. The oldest child, Akira, was more mature at age twelve than his goofy mother.I found many scenes that could have lasted but a few seconds went on for what seemed like minutes. For example, there are several scenes of Akira running that just go on and on. The movie could have easily been trimmed by an hour. If the goal of drawing things out was to have the audience suffer along with the kids, then the movie was successful on that count. The effect on me was to lose patience and have the potentially powerful emotional content squeezed out. By sheer force of will I resisted hitting the fast forward button.It was up to the young actor Yûra Yagira to carry the movie, and he did an admirable job. I imagine it was the director's skill in being able to get Yagira to express emotion through facial expression and body movement. It was interesting to see Yagira physically mature throughout the film and that was cleverly reflected in his character's development. Yagira was a child at the beginning, but was turning into a young man by the end.The predictability of the story also works against the slow pacing. If you turn four kids loose in a small apartment for the better part of a year with a money supply that has run out, then the result is pretty much inevitable. But any doubt about a conclusion that might have helped keep my attention was removed by a beginning scene that has Akira on a train looking disheveled and wearing a dirty T-shirt with holes in it.I get that this movie makes a comment on the depressing fact that the impersonality of large cities can allow this kind of situation to go unnoticed, or ignored, for so long. But some scenes stretch belief. Surely when the landlord came in and saw what was happening, she would have taken action. One of Akira's reasons for not going to the police or social services was that he was afraid the family would be split up, but I did not sense great closeness among the kids (each had a different father). Losing a sister was certainly not a step in maintaining family cohesion.The score often seemed inappropriate, invoking ironic humor when melancholy was called for.I was impressed with director Koreeda's "Still Walking," but I failed to connect with this movie.

I really cannot believe why people like this movie. I've read comments where people are saying that this film is beautiful. Really? Someone could actually look at the suffering going on in this movie and enjoy it, let alone call it beautiful? My major fault with this movie is that is seems almost pointless. Why would anyone want to watch a group of kids suffering for 2 hours, because that pretty much sums up the whole movie. Honestly, you have to be sort of sick in the head to actually watch this film and think, "Wow, I'm so touched. I just watched these kids live incredibly miserable lives... I really enjoyed it. What a great movie." That right there basically sums up the only reason why someone would like this movie, because unlike other sad movies, this movie does not contain values to be learned or at least enjoyable scenes.So to sum it all up, I would only recommend this movie to those who enjoy watching others suffer. I, for one, don't enjoy watching others suffer, and so I give this movie a 1 out of 10.