समाचार

“A Life Turned Upside Down: My Dad’s an Alcoholic” casts a damning eye on the pernicious role alcohol plays in the working careers and social lives of Japanese men. Narrated by the innermost thoughts of a daughter during the 25 years she spends watching her father drink himself to death, With achingly honest things to say about misplaced female guilt, and uplifting messages about female strength, “A Life” deserves to be on the radar of streaming platforms looking for high quality, universally accessible foreign-language fare.

The source material is Mariko Kikuchi’s autobiographical online manga, the title of which translates literally as “My father, who becomes a monster when he’s drunk, causes me pain.” When the manga first appeared in April 2017, overwhelming demand caused the publisher’s server to crash. At the heart of Kikuchi’s story, and faithfully maintained in the screenplay by Katagiri (“Room Laundering”) and fellow male writer Ayumu Kyuma,...