Virginie Efira plays Marie-Lou, the director of an elderly care facility outside Paris. She is trying to introduce a philosophy centred on attention and residents' dignity while part of the staff resists the changes.

Then Mari enters her life. Tao Okamoto's character is a Japanese theatre director living with cancer, and the relationship between the two women gradually becomes the film's main line.

The source material was a real exchange of letters

Hamaguchi and co-writer Léa Le Dimna loosely adapted a documentary book built from correspondence between philosopher Maoko Miyano and anthropologist Maho Isono. Miyano was facing terminal cancer when the exchange took place.

The film does not simply reproduce those letters as a biographical drama. It creates Marie-Lou and Mari, shifts the professions and settings, and lets the central idea survive in another form: two people meeting at a point where illness changes how time, work and ordinary conversation feel.

The care home is not just a set

Part of the production took place inside a real elderly care facility. Hamaguchi has said that the crew spent enough time there for residents and staff to become involved in the shoot, including appearances as extras.

That decision fits a director who often gives background behaviour unusual weight. Rooms remain occupied by other lives even when the dramatic focus belongs to Marie-Lou and Mari.

Cinematographer Alan Guichaoua worked with Hamaguchi on a film whose length leaves considerable room for pauses and extended dialogue. The 196-minute runtime is longer than Drive My Car.

Cannes refused to separate its two leads

All of a Sudden premiered in competition at the 2026 Cannes Film Festival. The jury awarded its Best Actress prize jointly to Efira and Okamoto.

It was Hamaguchi's third film in Cannes competition after Asako I & II and Drive My Car. Drive My Car won the festival's screenplay prize in 2021 before becoming the director's international breakthrough.

A French turn without abandoning Hamaguchi's usual patience

The locations and language make All of a Sudden an obvious departure. It is the Japanese filmmaker's first feature to be substantially shot in France, with a French-led production involving partners from Japan, Germany and Belgium.

The basic filmmaking impulse is more familiar: people speak for a long time, listening matters as much as speaking, and a relationship is allowed to alter gradually rather than announcing every change.

Diaphana released All of a Sudden in French cinemas on August 12, 2026.