Hush!

Seriously disappointing third feature from the director of A Touch of Fever and Like Grains of Sand. Asako (Kataoka), a socially graceless dental assistant, decides that she fancies maternity and barges into the lives of a gay couple, wanting Katsuhiro (Tanabe) to provide sperm and be a father at arm's length. But he is already having trouble in his relationship with the still closeted Naoya (Takahashi), and matters are made worse by the fact that a flakey woman in Katsuhiro's office has a crush on him. All the tensions explode, soap opera-style, when Katsuhiro's family visits from Kyoto for a showdown. It wouldn't be a problem that the film gets bogged down in such dated 'gay issues' if the thirty-something characters were more engaging and the film didn't spend so much time showing how existentially lonely they all are. Add some decidedly awkward comedy relief and you have a misfire which is really no advance on Joji Matsuoka's rather similar Twinkle, made nearly ten years earlier.