History Film / LateSpring

Shukichi (Ryu) is a professor and a widower. He lives alone with his only child, daughter Noriko (Hara), who is unmarried at the age of 27. Noriko keeps house for her father while he goes about his academic work. 27 years old is considered verging on OldMaid status in Japan, but Noriko has no real urge to get married and is content to live at home and look after her father. Noriko's Aunt Masa, however, wants her niece to get married before its too late. Masa approaches Shukichi and he agrees to get Noriko married off, even at the cost of his own happiness.

* ArrangedMarriage: Shukichi and Masa make one for Noriko.

* ChristmasCake: The peculiar and more extreme Japanese variant of OldMaid, in which a woman older than 25 is thought to be past marriageable age. Shukichi and Masa are motivated to find Noriko a husband before it's too late.

* GettingCrapPastTheRadar: Creator/YasujiroOzu was generally thought to be a conservative who valued Japanese tradition and old-style values, which is why his films are so typically "Japanese", as opposed to Creator/AkiraKurosawa who made more West-friendly movies. Lars-Martin Sorensen in his book ''Censorship of Japanese Films During the U.S. Occupation of Japan: The Cases of Yasujirō Ozu and Akira Kurosawa'' observes that , made in 1949 when the United States was occupying Japan and American censors were controlling Japanese films, seems to have a carefully hidden message decrying Western values. Note the scene where Noriko and a friend cross a bridge on bicycles, while a sign saying "Drink Coca-Cola" in English is prominent in the foreground. This is often cited as a dig at Western commercialism.

* LeaveTheCameraRunning: In one scene Masa is at her tatami mat on the floor when the bell rings on the door. The camera continues to point, fixed, at the tatami mat while Masa walks to the door, going out of focus, and greets her caller. Then the camera still stays on the mat as she walks back and crosses the frame to the right, and only then is there a cut.
* TheMatchmaker: Aunt Masa is positively pushy about it.
--> "Well, will you marry him? Answer me."
* ParentsAsPeople: Shukichi truly loves Noriko and doesn't want her to get married just because her being ChristmasCake is an embarrassment to him; he acknowledges that he's getting older and knows that he can't take care of her forever, as she has no job or other marriage prospects and is completely dependent on him. However, his insistence even as she pleads with him to reconsider leads to her being miserable in a marriage she doesn't want while he's stuck alone at home.

* StepfordSmiler: See JapanesePoliteness above. Noriko wears that smile plastered over her face for most of the movie--when she's calling Onodura "filthy", when she's insulting Aya, when she begs her father not to make her get married, and on the day of the marriage she doesn't want.
* WellIntentionedExtremist: Shukichi eventually has to go out of his way to almost force an arranged marriage for his daughter, Noriko. However, he is merely doing it so she can move on and not have to worry so much about him. He loves his daughter like good father would and this makes the forceful choice all the more difficult on him.

* YamatoNadeshiko: Noriko, loyal, loving, gentle, devoted to her father.

%% * GettingCrapPastThe Radar: Due to overwhelming and persistent misuse, GCPTR is on-page examples only until 01 June 2021. If you are reading this in the future, please check the trope page to make sure your example fits the current definition.

* GettingCrapPastTheRadar: Ozu was generally thought to be a conservative who valued Japanese tradition and old-style values, which is why his films are so typically "Japanese", as opposed to Creator/AkiraKurosawa who made more West-friendly movies. Critics have observed that this film, made in 1949 when the United States was occupying Japan and American censors were controlling Japanese films, seems to have a carefully hidden message decrying Western values. Note the scene where Noriko and a friend cross a bridge on bicycles, while a sign saying "Drink Coca-Cola" in English is prominent in the foreground. This is often cited as a dig at Western commercialism.

Shuchiki (Ryu) is a professor and a widower. He lives alone with his only child, daughter Noriko (Hara), who is unmarried at the age of 27. Noriko keeps house for her father while he goes about his academic work. 27 years old is considered verging on OldMaid status in Japan, but Noriko has no real urge to get married and is content to live at home and look after her father. Noriko's Aunt Masa, however, wants her niece to get married before its too late. Masa approaches Shuchiki and he agrees to get Noriko married off, even at the cost of his own happiness.

* ArrangedMarriage: Shuchiki and Masa make one for Noriko.

* ChristmasCake: The peculiar and more extreme Japanese variant of OldMaid, in which a woman older than 25 is thought to be past marriageable age. Shuchiki and Masa are motivated to find Noriko a husband before it's too late.
* DownerEnding: Noriko is basically badgered into a marriage she doesn't want by her father and aunt. Shuchiki for his part is left at home alone, in despair.

* HollywoodDarkness: Noriko and Shuchiki retire for the evening and she turns out the light, but a beam coming from somewhere is still artfully lighting her face as she talks to her father.

* NiceGuy: Shuchiki.

* WellIntentionedExtremist: Shuchiki eventually has to go out of his way to almost force an arranged marriage for his daughter, Noriko. However, he is merely doing it so she can move on and not have to worry so much about him. He loves his daughter like good father would and this makes the forceful choice all the more difficult on him.
** Noriko's aunt even more so. She also cares about Noriko's and her growth to maturity. She does seem to be a normal person but she will go even farther and be more controlling than Shuchiki will be.

* YamatoNadeshiko: Noriko, loyal, loving, gentle, devoted to her father.

--> "If I left home, Father would be lost."

Compare another Ozu film, ''Film/EarlySummer'' (1951), which also starred Setsuko Hara as a character named Noriko (but not the same character), and has very similar story elements, with the Noriko character being pressured by her family into an undesired ArrangedMarriage. And then there was ''Film/LateAutumn'' (1960)--seriously, Ozu was into ThemeNaming--which ''also'' starred Setsuko Hara, and was a remake of this film, but with Hara playing the role of the parent instead.

Compare another Ozu film, ''Film/EarlySummer'' (1951), which also starred Setsuko Hara as a character named Noriko (but not the same character), and has very similar story elements, with the Noriko character being pressured by her family into an undesired ArrangedMarriage.

** She is also grinning broadly when she tells a divorced friend "Who are you to lecture me about marriage?"

* HollywoodDarkness

* SliceOfLife
* YamatoNadeshiko

** One of the few times that Noriko drops the StepfordSmiler routine is when she's told that Masa might match up her father with a new wife.

* YamatoNadeshiko

* CelebrityResemblance: Noriko's proposed match Satake is said to look like Creator/GaryCooper, "[[Film/ThePrideOfTheYankees the guy from that baseball movie]]."

* CelebrityResemblance: Noriko's proposed match Satake is said to look like Creator/GaryCooper, "[[Film/PrideOfTheYankees the guy from that baseball movie]]."

* JapanesePoliteness: Noriko still manages to be smiling and cheerful as she tells Prof. Onodera that she finds it "distasteful" and "filthy" that he got remarried after his wife died.

* SignatureShot: Features multiple examples of the Signature Shot of Ozu's career: conversations between two characters framed as shot-reverse shot exchanges in which each character is in the center of the frame.