As a professional proofreader, Fuyuko (Yukino Kishii) spends her days and nights finding and correcting mistakes. Others seem to find fault with her in turn — her point person, Hijiri (Misato Morita) questions why she never seems to leave her house, go out anywhere, doesn’t have a boyfriend, doesn’t seem to pursue casual sex like she does. But Fuyuko does, in fact, leave her house. She likes to walk late at night, when only “half the world remains.” The artificial glow from the vehicles and shops of Tokyo’s twilight hours shimmer and flicker across her face as she strolls. Shot on 16mm, the picture’s shifting grain mirrors the twinkling of the city’s light.
The Un Certain Regard-selected “All the Lovers in the Night” is adapted from the novel of the same name by the internationally-bestselling Japanese novelist Mieko Kawakami. Known for works such as “Breasts and Eggs” and “Heaven,” Kawakami’s delicate yet unrestrained prose captures kaleidoscopic realities of modern Japanese womanhood.
“All the Lovers in the Night” is a relatively thin tome, and its resultant film adaptation has the feel of a short story put under the microscope. Its writer/director Yukiko Sode is well-suited to her material. A rising female director, her previous features — including “Good Stripes” (2015) and “Aristocrats” (2020) — center women wrestling with shifting interpersonal and romantic relationships.
We spend the first portion of this pensive two-hour-plus feature watching day turn to night in Fuyuko’s home, as she lies on the floor in one room, sits at her desk in the next, and back again. Rain starts to pour through the open window. She pulls off her trousers to allow the droplets to fall onto her skin. Kawakami’s source novel gives these events meaning through its protagonist’s continuous first-person internal monologue — Sode smartly translates these thoughts into actions.
Kishii is compellingly, refreshingly unreadable in her role, reminiscent of Yuumi Kawai’s turn in “Desert of Namibia,” and her character’s listless lack of concession (to expectation or the audience) feels radical. It’s heartening to discover another female Japanese director treading this path, along with “Namibia” director Yoko Yamanaka and Akiko Ohku (“She Taught Me Serendipity”), to name a few who have been given an international spotlight of late.
When Fuyuko ventures out from her solitude, she’s blessed with a chance encounter. The man’s name is Mitsutsuka (Tadanobu Asano), a reserved and soft-spoken physics lecturer with whom she discovers she shares a passion for light. Dressed in a plain white shirt and wearing a gentle smile, Mitsutsuka sees Asano play in a subtler mode than the larger roles he’s best-known for. Despite the character’s older age, there’s a boyish charm to his intellectual enthusiasm — if you squint a little at his uniform-like outfit, he appears more school boy than school teacher. The pair meet again, in bars and coffee shops, and Fuyuko’s routine is reshaped. Those walks she loves become social. Is it just the walks that she loves?
Sode’s film is unpretentiously talky in these scenes, buoyed by the breezy yet grounded chemistry between its unlikely romantic pairing. Their musings on light, particles, and human connection are charming and poignant, though it never feels as if “All the Lovers in the Night” is hoping to express anything in particular — sequences stretch out naturalistically to the point of stagnation. For some, this may prove boring; for others, emotionally resonant. We can appreciate things differently when we stop to inspect them more closely, noticing anomalies flicker across our vision.
He introduces her to Chopin, and the previously quiet film gains a soundtrack. However, memory starts to get in the way for Fuyuko. We flash back without preamble to her high school days, where she suffers a sexual assault from a friend. This is presented upsettingly matter-of-factly — sudden, and just out of frame. Back in the present, Fuyuko’s feelings for Mitsutsuka begin to shift as she steps out into the light. It’s a startling moment, as the young woman hasn’t let anyone in until now — least of all the audience.
But the film’s slightness is a feature, not a fault, speaking to the ephemerality of our human connections and how we feel about them. “All the Lovers in the Night” succeeds in capturing something true and intangible about that experience. “Is there nothing here?,” questions Fuyuko in the final act, waving her hand through seemingly empty air. “Sure there is,” he replies.
Grade: B
“All the Lovers in the Night” premiered in Competition at the 2026 Cannes Film Festival. Neon will release it in theaters.
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