Jiro Dreams Of Sushi

(from June 7 2012)

"Jiro dreams of Sushi", to my slight irritation, continues to play in a few theatres across Toronto. It has been playing here for a few months now.

I have been told this story a million times -  this story of a great man who neglects his wife and his children for the greatness of his art. I love a story that gets told over and over again, but this old story has very few mysteries left in it. This old story is starting to sound a bit like a boring, somber holiday greeting card you get in the mail every year and feel slightly obliged to put on your fridge.

In this particular story of that story, Jiro, of "Jiro Dreams Of Sushi", neglects his wife and his children to make the perfect sushi.  "Jiro Dreams of Sushi" is a straight-up and well-made documentary, interesting enough and well received on the Tomatomometer. But it sure is about that old story. Sushi doesn't manage to make that particular old story any more interesting.

Content-wise, I probably would have liked it better if I saw in a program where it was sandwiched between Hayao Miyazaki "Spirited Away" (an animation that includes adults who gorge themselves on delicious food, turn into pigs, and then are threatened death by a witch unless their child can pick them out of a crowd of pigs) and Dan Stone's "At the Edge of the World" (where animal rights activists led by Paul Watson war against a Japanese whaling ship in Antarctica). That probably would have been delicious.

 Act 1

Act 2

Act 3