‘All of a Sudden’ Trailer: Ryusuke Hamaguchi’s Epic Two-Hander Stars Virginie Efira and Tao Okamoto

Exclusive: A hit out of Cannes, the film is Japan's entry for Best International Feature. It may go even further than that.

We’re not throwing around the term “epic two-hander” lightly, people. For his latest feature, Ryusuke Hamaguchi follows his “Evil Does Not Exist” and “Drive My Car” with a delicate drama that hinges on the profound relationship between two women, a plea for a hopeful future that also clocks in at 196 minutes.

The film was a major hit out of Cannes, where it premiered earlier this year, and netted stars Virginie Efira and Tao Okamoto a shared Best Actress win. Efira also received the Leopard Club Award at the Locarno Film Festival this year on behalf of the film. The film has already been announced as Japan’s entry for Best International Feature at the 2027 Oscars.

Co-written by Hamaguchi and Léa Le Dimna, the film is loosely based on the non-fiction book “You and I – The Illness Suddenly Get Worse” by Makiko Miyano and Maho Isono, with Efira and Okamoto standing in for its own authors. The film’s incredibly lovely first trailer gives us a two-minute glimpse at the pains and pleasures to come.

Per the film’s official logline: “Director of a care facility for the elderly, Marie-Lou strives to introduce an innovative care philosophy based on listening and respecting residents’ dignity, despite resistance from part of her staff. Her encounter with Mari, a Japanese theater director battling cancer, will profoundly reshape her path. By forming a deep, supportive friendship, the two women join forces in a shared struggle to make the impossible possible.”

At Cannes, our David Ehrlich praised the film, writing, “Marathon-like as ‘All of a Sudden‘ might be, its message resonates so deeply because of the many elisions that it refuses to make, which leave the few handful of gaps in its timeline to feel like yawning chasms. Of course, that’s a small criticism to level against a light and lovely movie that argues for a more humane future with the same conviction that ‘Evil Does Not Exist’ articulated the glib destructiveness of our present.”

He continued, “‘All of a Sudden’ may not resolve with the same visceral force as that film, or offer the richness of feeling that ‘Happy Hour’ and ‘Drive My Car’ earned by their ends, but it arrives at a power all its own through how credibly it grows more hopeful as it inches towards death. It makes the impossible seem possible.”

Check out the first trailer for “All of a Sudden,” an IndieWire exclusive, below. Neon will release the film in theaters on Wednesday, November 25.