Under the Stars (2020)

This movie had quite a different take to the normal cult related movies that we see in movies and tv shows. This one showed a family that joined a cult after noticing their sick baby getting better after using the special cult water. And honestly, the family (although apart of a cult) was shown in a very humane way, like the way have dinner together, wash clothes after wearing them for a few days, sharing food with friends, watch shooting stars and so forth, it was all portrayed in a "they're just like us" type of way.
According to her cult, they aren't allowed to drink anything other than their water. So seeing Chi chan enjoy both coffee and water was an interesting to see how Chi chan could balance her parent's religious/cult beliefs in her life alongside the normal societal beliefs through the analogy of drinking both coffee (societal) and the special bottled water (cult).
One thing I noted was that her friends didn't mind or disrespect her beliefs or lifestyle, no mockery, no name calling, or bullying or spreading rumours about her, they just took it as face value and moved on with their own lives. It definitely reinforced that humane viewpoint that I mentioned earlier, the director definitely did a good job to show that although slightly different, they are just like us.
But I do have to acknowledge that, the difference between this story and others is that this Chi chan's parent's cult beliefs weren't as extreme as the reported cases in Japan's news are like. This story shows very mild or moderate cult behaviours; like yes it's made them poor and they have to refrain from drinking stuff that isn't the bottled water, but it's not to the extreme that the parents are giving their entire fortune away to the cult orgs like some do cult members do as seen in real life cases. So maybe that's why it was easy to show this family in a somewhat compassionate light.
Overall, it was a good movie with good acting and great cinematography, especially the last scene with the shooting stars.


P.s. Okada Masaki is very scary when he's acting angry and pissed off, I do not want to get on his bad side ever. But, I can see why people have commented that his character is a jerk. To an extent I agree, he was quite harsh to Chi chan. However, since we never got a backstory to his character, I'd like to think that maybe it's because of past trauma and experience from cults that made him beyond upset. Also, if someone you don't know that well is drawing you every time they see you, that can be very uncomfortable, so I just think that on top of learning about the cultism was the final straw for him.

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