How Long Is “I Wish”?

Siblings try to find a way out of the circumstances imposed on them by their parents in this comedy-drama from Japanese filmmaker Hirokazu Koreeda. Ryunosuke (Ohshiro Maeda) and Koichi (Koki Maeda) brothers as well as best friends, but their lives are turned upside down when their parents divorce and custody arrangements split them up. Twelve-year-old Koichi ends up with his mother Nozomi (Nene Ohtsuka), and they move in with her parents in a small village where she gets a job at a supermarket. Koichi's younger brother Ryunosuke, meanwhile, moves in with his dad Kenji (Joe Odagiri), a struggling musician who can't hold on to a day job. The brothers miss each other and want to bring their parents back together, and when they hear of an urban legend that if two people make the same wish at the same time while watching two bullet trains pass one another, the wish will immediately come true, they decide this is the way to reunite the family. However, arranging for the proper circumstances is more complicated than they first thought, and involves ditching school, fooling their parents, and some expensive travel across the country. As the scheme becomes more elaborate, they're joined by a number of other kids who have wishes of their own. Kiseki (aka I Wish) received its North American premiere at the 2011 Toronto International Film Festival.