What are you willing to do to be happy? In Yuta Shimotsu’s haunting film, Best Wishes to All, we are asked that question, and the answer is frightening.
Best Wishes to All
When you have Yuta Shimotsu as writer/director and Takashi Shimizu as executive producer involved in a film, then you know right from the start that the film is a must-watch. Best Wishes to All stars Kotone Furukawa, Koya Matsudai, Masashi Arifuku, Kazuo Hashimoto, Yoshiko Inuyama, and Shiho Yoshimura.
The suspense is immediate when a young girl, while on a family visit to her grandparents, is asked by her grandmother if she is happy now. This simple question startles the child, as does the noises coming from the attic above the bedroom. Years later, when the girl (Kotone Furukawa), who is on break for nursing school, visits her grandparents, they ask her that question again. It’s a simple question, but troubling as we begin to realize that the idyllic countryside and her grandparents’ home are hiding something sinister.
The girl’s grandparents are acting strange, and what I had originally assumed was a case of sundowning turned out to be a much darker scenario. As the girl awaits the arrival of her parents and younger brother, she is shocked to learn that the grandparents are keeping a man prisoner. What is the connection between this prisoner and the family’s happiness?
Conclusion
I ask this question again, “What are you willing to do to be happy?” Yuta Shimotsu cleverly slices through our assumptions of happiness with stark realism and horror. There are no jump scares in Best Wishes to All. They are not needed. The horror is in the frightening observation of a family’s delusions of the true source of happiness. Will the young girl choose wisely?
Best Wishes to All will be streaming on Shudder beginning Friday, June 13th.
I loved it. You will, too.
