Desperate Sunflowers (2016)

This offbeat relationship drama revolves around cousins who first meet the cousins as girls, when shy little Tetsuko (Yo Yoshida) conceives an unconquerable dislike of the weepy, willful Natsuko (Yoshino Kimura).

They meet several decades later when Natsuko breezes into the law office where Tetsuko is now a hard-working attorney. Joyfully recognizing her long-lost cousin, a feeling the sober Tetsuko does not share.

Natsuko tells her she wants compensation from a former fiance for breaking off their engagement. When Tetsuko dutifully investigates, she learns that Natsuko was intending to cheat the poor sap out of an apartment, a fact that Natsuko flatly denies before she sails out of Tetsuko’s life, neglecting to pay her legal bill. It seems like Natsuko as turned into a smooth and savvy scam artist.

Life turns out to be extremely challenging for the unsmiling, all-business Tetsuko. Her husband leaves her, her clients complain of her coldness and even her easy-going boss (Lasalle Ishii) scolds her for lacking the human touch. A kindly legal aide (Eiko Nagashima) offers moral support and a handsome new hire (Aoi Nakamura) stays loyally by her side, but Tetsuko is slowly drowning in quiet desperation, when Natsuko shows up again with another dodgy legal problem.

She is surely not welcomed by Tetsuko but the grim-faced lawyer finds herself becoming the shy little girl she was as she is again sucked into the whirlwind that is Natsuko, she learns life lessons from her free-spirited cousin and those around her, victims included, who love her for all her faults. How will the relationship between the two cousins evolve?