• Plan 75

12/27/25 (Sat)

Hayakawa Chie’s 2022 work, amazingly her first feature film, is a beautiful and understated rumination on an aging society, an acute issue in Japan. The government has crafted a sweet-sounding plan offering incentives for those 75 and older to, in effect, kill themselves. Those who sign up receive a ¥100,000 cash payment (rendered oddly as $1,000 in the subtitles) and can spend their final hours wining and dining in a lovely facility, where they will then be gassed to death. Cremation and other costs are completely covered as well. While the program is nominally voluntary, the attraction is strong for lonely old people with nowhere else to turn, and there is considerable pressure to ease the burden on society by slipping peacefully away rather than dragging on unproductively for decades more.

Three unrelated stories proceed in tandem. A 78-year-old woman with no family and modest means loses her meager job at a government facility due, ironically, to unfounded complaints from the public that the elderly are being exploited. She is unable to find new work or a place to live at that age, rendering her unable to care for herself, and faces the unhappy option of giving up her independence and turning to welfare. A line is crossed when she discovers one of her friends dead in her small apartment, alone and, judging from the putrid smell, apparently unnoticed for some time. She begins to consider the widely publicized Plan 75. She tries to find solace in the 15-minute consultations provided on the plan’s dedicated talk line, and even manages to convince the consultant to slip out and go bowling with her as she did with her late husband. She passes the consultant thank-you money, telling her that she has nowhere else to spend the ¥100,000 bonus. While the applicants are free to cancel at any time, the consultant has been instructed not to encourage that in her talks and reluctantly pulls away. The old woman, seeing little hope, finally decides that her time has come.

Meanwhile, a young bureaucrat working for the plan is tasked with explaining the terms to potential applicants. He politely and carefully goes over the features to each individual, evidencing little concern that he is basically pushing them to die. It is not a hard-sell but a quiet encouragement, making it all the more chilling. (He is also seen trying out barriers on benches to prevent the homeless from sleeping there.) He does his job mechanically with no real thought of the consequences. Then one day he notes that the new applicants include his estranged uncle, leading him to reflect on the true nature of his work. He takes his uncle to his apartment and out to eat, but does nothing to discourage him from pursuing the plan. He later discovers to his horror that the dead bodies in the scheme are being sold to a waste disposal company for profit. When the uncle’s day arrives, the boy must make a decision.

The final story involves a friendly Filipina worker who has left behind a husband and sick child in order to earn money in Japan as a caretaker for the elderly. She enjoys good support from her countrymen at her local church. One friend there recommends a higher-paying job sorting out the belongings of those who have died under Plan 75, since many of the deceased have no family to inherit their possessions. Her co-worker, an elderly Japanese man, tacitly encourages her to help herself to some of the goodies since they will otherwise go the government. She resists taking advantage of the situation, but the medical needs of her child are critical and expensive…

The phenomenon of solitary aged citizens, often abandoned by their families and dependent on society for their needs, is hardly new in Japan but is becoming increasingly serious as society skews inexorably older. The dystopian scenario presented here feels all too plausible; indeed, a similar path is already underway in Canada, where a controversial euthanasia policy has been passed by parliament. The fear in Canada as well as in this film is that vulnerable people, especially those without financial resources or family, will turn to death not as a response to pain or disease but out of sheer loneliness or guilt for burdening their families or society. The film notes at the opening how Japanese have always been willing to sacrifice themselves for the greater good and later highlights the vast savings that the public will enjoy when the elderly are no longer around to suck up limited resources, suggesting that Plan 75 is a way for modern Japanese to similarly serve their country. A TV report can be heard to say that the plan has been so successful that the government is thinking to lower the age to 65. Society shows no interest in people beyond their sell-date, who become merely a cost. The theme recalls Narayama Bushiko, where citizens were expected to commit suicide after a certain age. But that was tempered by the setting in a long-ago era. Plan 75 could be happening today, a chilling thought.

None of the stories are quite wrapped up at the end. The old woman turns and sees the uncle in the adjoining room, masked and ready to die. A sudden malfunction of her machine gives her a second chance, and she leaves the facility, determined to face the challenges that life has thrown at her. The bureaucrat, arriving too late to save his uncle, steals the body in order to give him at least a decent cremation. He races with the corpse to reach the crematorium in time, but the story ends when he is stopped by a policeman for speeding, leaving it unclear whether he succeeded. The girl, cleaning up a dead man’s belongings, finds a large amount of money – money that could go either to the government or to her daughter’s heart operation. She is considering whether to commit sin by stealing as the scene shifts. Baisho’s story ends with hope, which was well played, but it would have been nice to see the other stories resolved as well, though I appreciated the lack of overt drama.

The core of the film is unquestionably the great Baisho Chieko, who gives a performance of tremendous subtlety as the elderly woman. Her helplessness as her pillars are gradually removed – her job, her apartment, her friends, her independence – is heartbreaking. With the director’s masterful slow buildup, it is wrenching to watch Baisho’s descent to a mindset where death feels like the only choice. Hayato Isomura and Stefanie Arianne did stellar work as the other two main characters, and the supporting cast, especially Baisho’s co-workers, were solid as well (one reminded me of Sugimura Haruko).

The film calmly questions a world in which the elderly are seen as a burden rather than human beings, giving us three-dimensional characters highlighting the issue from varied perspectives. It won an award at Cannes and was Japan’s nomination for the Oscars (though it wasn’t chosen), quite an accomplishment for a first-time filmmaker. Highly recommended.