Meiko discovers that her best friend has gone on a date with her ex-boyfriend. This makes her reconsider and wonder whether their relationship is really over. Nao is a student in her thirties with a family. She is bored of life and tries to seduce an older professor at her latest lover’s suggestion. IT specialist Natsuko goes to her high school reunion hoping to meet her one-time crush, but her plans turn out differently.

The film’s Japanese title, Guzen to Sozo, means “coincidence and imagination” and won the Silver Bear Grand Jury Prize at Berlinale. This intimate slice-of-life drama is shot in Japanese director Ryûsuke Hamaguchi signature style, but this time it is a triptych about three women, their choices, coincidences and illusions to the accompaniment of Schumann’s music. Hamaguchi uses the camera as a pen with which to describe, analyse and capture contemporary Japanese women. His films are often composed of situations taken from real life, like conversations between two people, static scenes and carefully orchestrated dialogue and at the end of each scene, the viewer is entrusted with a previously unspoken revelation.