A review by sdwoodchuck
Breasts and Eggs by Mieko Kawakami

4.5

 

Natsuko is an Osaka girl trying to make it as a writer in Tokyo. When her sister Makiko visits the city for a consultation for breast implants, both sisters, along with Makiko's teenage daughter Midoriko, come to face uncomfortable understandings of each others' perspective of femininity.

Some years later, Natsuko finds herself curious about artificial insemination, due to her desire for a child, but complete disinterest in a romantic partner. The search to find a clinic that will accommodate a single woman--or failing that, an informal donor--is consuming her energy and sapping her will to write the followup novel to her initial success.

If this sounds very Lifetime movie-ish, I can't fault you for doubting, but what really works here is the way that it keeps the sentimentality at arm's length and instead lets its characters really engage in their discomfort, anxiety, and self-doubt. It doesn't have inspirational or simplistic answers for their conflicts, but treats each of their contradictory perspectives with compassion and interest. Each character is so well-realized and never a simple convenient caricature.