The Long Excuse 2016

Sachio Kinugasa, Masahiro Motoki, is a celebrated celebrity writer who has long dressed himself in arrogance, shrugging off his humble roots as if they belonged to someone else. His wife, Natsuko, Eri Fukatsu, works as a hairdresser and quietly bears the distance that has grown between them. The couple’s fragile balance begins to tilt when tragedy strikes: Natsuko dies in a bus crash while Sachio is in bed with his mistress, and he reactionlessly feels no guilt. That cold indifference immediately strains the other relationship, as the mistress, already weighed down by her own remorse, walks away.

The calamity isn’t limited to Sachio’s life alone. Natsuko’s death also claims her friend Yuki, Keiko Horiuchi, who was riding on the same bus. In the wake of the crash, Yoichi Omiya, the husband of Yuki, a truck driver, finds himself suddenly responsible for two small children and struggles to cope with the overwhelming responsibility. Sachio reaches out and begins to help with the children, drawn, perhaps unexpectedly, into a role he never anticipated. As he cares for them, he confronts his own lack of genuine grief for his wife and discovers that tending to the children becomes a tangible way to process guilt he has long avoided.

Yoichi, too, experiences a shift as he grows increasingly detached from his kids. When he eventually forms a new partnership, the maelstrom of responsibility intensifies for Sachio, who may have to step back from the day-to-day care. This shift pushes Sachio toward a deeper self-examination: he starts composing a new book about the experience, turning the crucible of this family crisis into art, and in doing so, he assumes an unexpectedly pivotal place in the children’s lives. Through these acts, he begins to find a semblance of closure for the pain that had fractured his previously insulated life.

What unfolds is a measured, humane exploration of how people respond to loss, guilt, and the impulse to repair what has been damaged. The narrative stays grounded in quiet (

bold) moments of decision and responsibility, illustrating how writing, caregiving, and the slow accumulation of small acts can reshape a person’s moral horizon. It’s a story about reevaluating what it means to be a family, about choosing to give of oneself for others, and about discovering that healing can arrive through the sometimes difficult, always intimate work of truly showing up for those who need you most.