Three Hearts

Ryosuke Hashiguchi's Hush! quietly made its way to Cannes last year, but it may yet do brisk box office around Asia. Think of it as a reworking of Madonna's The Next Best Thing, only better: this version swaps tack for tact. Hashiguchi, the Japanese director of many gay-themed films, doesn't play the camp for lame laughs but to showcase family values.

Katshuhiro (Tanabe Seiichi) is a brooding engineer who's gay, gets hit on by women, but tries to keep his secret hidden. That is until he meets Naoya (Takahashi Kazuya), a self-centered gay man, and the two of them start a love affair. Into their lives comes Asako (Kataoka Reiko), a surly twentysomething who has been on more laps than a restaurant napkin, and who takes a shine to Katshuhiro. In him she sees a man with "a father's eyes" and suggests they conceive a child by artificial means, to Naoya's initial displeasure. Between bouts of bowling, drinking, emotional howling and a Bobby McFerrin soundtrack, the three of them blossom into something like a family.

The kernel of Hush!, its conscience, is delivered in one zestful 10-min. sequence. The three characters' families gather in Katsuhiro's living room for a confrontation over his relationship with Asako. The nine relatives in the room, framed together like a painting, each get to voice their concerns, prejudices and, in Asako's case, undying love (for both men). Hashiguchi's passive, distant lens is the perfect partner for their very active dysfunction. Hush! is felicitously titled. Wry and endearing, it makes the right noises but doesn't shout about it.