Movie spotlight: 'I Wish'

What a kind and wise movie this is. Though they have been living apart following their parents' divorce, Japanese gradeschoolers Koichi and Ryu (played delightfully by real-life brothers Koki and Ohshiro Maeda) keep in touch with regular phone calls. Koichi believes a classmate's tale that anyone who makes a wish at the point where the island's north and south bullet trains cross will have his wish granted. Clearly, this would reunite their family, and the caper unfolds like a half-pint road movie. Director Hirokazu Kore-eda avoids the cloying characters and patronizing tone that mar most Hollywood films about children. Like the great Japanese animator Hayao Miyazake ("Spirited Away"), Kore-eda believes that benevolent forces protect innocent children. That may be a fairy tale, but properly told it's a lovely one. (Unrated; suitable for all audiences. In subtitled Japanese.)

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