Movie: Sweet Bean

[Madeline George]

Sweet Bean is a beautifully filmed movie.  Bright cherry blossoms, steam, pots of beans and even the pancakes frying on the griddle are pretty. The story revolves around three characters: Tokue, and old lady with leprosy,  Sentaro, a man convicted of manslaughter who makes dorayaki      , and  Wakana, a teenage girl who doesn’t want to go to high school. All three seem to have a secret and all three seem a little broken in the beginning of the film.  

In the beginning of the film Sentaro is making the dorayaki, that people apparently tolerate,but don’t enjoy.  Wakana visits the shop and takes the reject treats to feed to her beloved canary, that her mother and the landlord are making her get rid of. Tokue is a kooky old lady who shows up at the little shop asking for a job. She’s in her 70’s  and Sentaro turns her down, sending her on her way with one of his subpar dorayaki. Wakana also says she would like a job as his assistant. The next day, Tokue shows up critiquing Sentaro’s dorayaki, she says the pancakes are decent but the bean paste is just not good.  She leaves him with a container of her homemade bean paste. Of course it is incredibly good and the next day when Tokue shows up again, he hires her to make the bean paste for his dorayaki.  He learns, and suddenly people are lining up to buy dorayaki at this shop.  Ultimately the shop’s owner’s wife shows up to tell Sentaro he must fire Tokue because Tokue has leprosy .  Sentaro doesn’t fireTokue and no one is coming to buy dorayaki anymore.  Ultimately Tokue is fired and Sentaro and Wakana go to visit her at the sanatorium.   .  

The bosses wife comes to the shop and tells Sentaro her nephew will be cooking hence forth and Sentaro falls into a depression. He and Wakana return to the sanatorium to find Tokue has died of pneumonia . Toque’s friend bequeaths Toque’s cooking tools to Sentaro and Gives the two visitors a recording left to them by Tokue.  The final shots are of Wakana happily going to school and of Sentaro happily selling dorayaki in a local park.