Internist Ayano Orii (Tamiyo
Kusakari), having made a failed suicide attempt after a
romantic breakup, finds herself unusually sensitive to the pain of her patient
Shinzo Egi (Kôji Yakusho), whose severe asthma
attacks will soon threaten to kill him. It helps that Egi, stoic about his own
pain, finds indirect ways to assuage hers. The two have long, heart-to-heart
visits that may look like fantasy to anyone who's ever fought for two more
minutes of a busy doctor's time.
Coming to feel that he can trust
her more than his own family, Egi asks Dr. Orii to promise she will end his
life once things get bad enough that his body can only breathe and be nourished
through tubes. (The film includes so many shots of architectural ductwork that
one suspects Suo thinks a building's respiration has something to say about
that of an ICU patient.) Orii sadly agrees, and some time later -- in a scene
suggesting that "pulling the plug" can be a violent, terrifying thing
even when done lovingly -- she helps him die.
We see all this in flashback, as
Orii sits, three years later, in the waiting room of a prosecutor investigating
her actions. That prosecutor (Takao Osawa) is
drawn as such an officious, manipulative man that we're pushed into identifying
even more strongly with Orii. When, very late in the film, he questions her
choices, what should be a legitimate debate -- one that would cause viewers to
think harder about these issues as they play out in the real world -- the film
has all but forced us to dismiss his accusations as heartless persecution.
It's easy to imagine a version of
this story that would need to run over two hours, but A Terminal Trust isn't it. Suo's script
spends so much time upfront on the relationship between doctor and patient
that, without becoming a miniseries, it can't fully explore the issues raised
by his incapacitation and death. It's understandable Suo would want to give so
much screen time to the highly sympathetic Yakusho, but doing so doesn't serve
the dramatic structure of a film that might've been much more provocative than
it is. [more]
Cast: Tamiyo Kusakari, Kôji Yakusho, Taka Osawa, Tadanobu Asano
Director-Screenwriter: Masayuki Suo, based on the novel by Tatsuki Saku
Producers: Ken Tsuchiya, Naoto Inaba, Takao Tsuchimoto, Shinyato Horikawa
Executive producers: Chihiro Kameyama, Shôji Masui
Director of photography: Rokuro Terada
Production designer: Norihiro Isoda
Music: Yoshikazu Suo
Editor: Junichi Kikuchi
