This article explores the profound connection between Hirokazu Kore-eda’s film “Shoplifters” (2018) and the philosophy developed by Joseph Maria Esquirol in “Intimate Resistance” (2015). Both authors converge in confronting existential hardship  —the inevitable condition of vulnerability, fragility, pain, and loneliness to which human life is exposed—even when this hardship manifests itself in the material and social precarity of a marginalized family. Koreeda’s film vividly illustrates Esquirol’s thesis: that true strength lies not in heroic gestures or external structures, but in the intimate resistance that emerges from the everyday, that is, in close bonds, mutual care, and small acts of tenderness that give meaning and dignity to lives. Thus, closeness and the will to cultivate spaces of care become the true refuge from emptiness and marginalization.

The film “Shoplifters” (2018), by Japanese director Hirokazu Koreeda, offers a moving portrait of a marginalized family surviving economic hardship through petty theft and subsistence strategies outside the law. However, beyond their precarious social condition, the film focuses on the strength of the bonds forged between its members, bonds not always based on blood ties, but rather on mutual care and the decision to stay together. This perspective resonates deeply with the reflection developed by Joseph Maria Esquirol in  “Intimate Resistance”  (2015), where he proposes that true strength in the face of life’s harsh realities is not found in grand deeds or abstract discourses, but in everyday life, in gestures of tenderness, and in the closeness of family and community. 

Watching this film, it’s impossible not to think about what Esquirol discusses in his book, where he explains that human existence is always exposed to a kind of harshness: fragility, pain, loneliness, uncertainty. There’s no escaping this exposure, but there are ways to resist it. This resistance doesn’t come from grandiose or epic gestures, but from the intimate, the familiar, and the everyday. 

If there’s one thing Koreeda shows us in this film, it’s precisely that: the lives of these people, so marked by precariousness, find strength and meaning in small gestures of tenderness and in the refuge they offer each other. 

The elements on screen 

When Esquirol speaks of “existential exposure,” he refers to that inevitable condition of vulnerability in which we all find ourselves. In the film, this exposure is very visible in the material world: the family lives in a tiny, cramped house with leaks and no space for each person. They don’t have stable jobs or sufficient resources, and they depend on petty theft and scams. 

But the harshness isn’t just physical. It’s also felt in the lives of each character: the girl abandoned by her parents, the young man who can’t find his place at school, the elderly woman cast aside by her own family. These are wounded lives, perched on a social precipice where recognition is scarce. 

That is the harsh reality of the harshness that Koreeda portrays. He doesn’t seek to elicit pity, but to show that, even in those conditions, life still finds a way. 

The unseen resistance 

Faced with this harshness, Esquirol proposes the idea of ​​intimate resistance as a silent and humble attitude that manifests itself in everyday life. 

In “A Family Affair,” this resilience emerges in the moments the different characters share: when they all sit around the table to eat what little they have, when they bathe together in the small tub, when the father improvises games with the children. These simple gestures are, at their core, the true strength of the family. 

Esquirol insists that inner resilience doesn’t deny hardship, but neither does it surrender to it. What it does is cultivate spaces of care and meaning that allow one to move forward. In the film, the family doesn’t manage to overcome poverty or escape social marginalization, but they do endure each day thanks to those moments of closeness that protect them from emptiness. 

The warmth of proximity

One of Esquirol’s most beautiful ideas in these pages is the value of closeness. It is not grand speeches or institutions that sustain human beings, but close relationships, the faces of those who are by our side. 

The family depicted is not bound by legal contracts or biological ties in all cases. It is bound by the decision to care for one another. The girl, rescued from an abusive home, finds in this impoverished house a tenderness she had never known before. The boy experiences what it means to be loved and cared for, even if it is through a father who teaches him to steal. 

In these relationships, there is more warmth and meaning than in any social structure that marginalizes them. Proximity becomes, as Esquirol says, the true refuge from the elements. 

The house as a symbol 

Esquirol uses the metaphor of the house to speak of the human need for a protected place, a space to find warmth from the cold outside. The house is not just a building with walls and a roof: it is a realm of shelter, intimacy, and hospitality. 

The house in “A Family Affair” is far from ideal. It’s small, messy, and uncomfortable. But despite everything, it functions as a home in the profound sense that Esquirol envisions, and everyone seems happy there. Intimacy is built there, hospitality is experienced with newcomers there, and human warmth is cultivated there, a stark contrast to the coldness of society. 

The scenes in the house convey just that: a refuge. Around the table or during shared bath time, you feel a warmth that doesn’t depend on square footage or material possessions, but on the willingness to care for one another. 

One of Esquirol’s most beautiful ideas is when he says that “home can be defined as the place one returns to.” Understanding home as family, whether by blood or established through other ties, this argument is reminiscent of Rafael Alvira’s book  “The Place One Returns to: Reflections on the Family“, which states that family is ‘the place one returns to,’ for it is from family that we come and to which we must return in a mysterious and romantic way.

Tenderness as resistance 

Perhaps the clearest point of convergence between Esquirol and Koreeda lies in their appreciation of tenderness. For Esquirol, small gestures of care have more power to sustain life than any spectacular gesture. “Intimate Resistance” is founded on this ethic of care. 

The film shows this in numerous details: the way they wrap the little girl in clothing, the care they take in teaching her games, the way they support each other, even in times of scarcity. Tenderness is what transforms this group into a family. And it is also what gives them dignity amidst their marginalization. 

Koreeda films these gestures without excessive sentimentality, but with a delicacy that highlights their power. There, where there seems to be nothing, the essential emerges: tenderness as a form of resistance. 

Conclusion 

Koreeda’s film and Esquirol’s reflections agree that human beings are exposed to the elements, but that in the face of this fragility, there is no other way out than to resist from within. 

Intimate resistance allows us to understand that this is true strength: not the heroic or the spectacular, but the everyday, the silent, the close. 

Ultimately, the film reminds us that, amidst the precariousness and fragility of life, what truly sustains us is not grandiloquent speeches or external structures, but the bonds we cultivate day by day.  

Cristina Castillo. Bioethics Observatory. Catholic University of Valencia

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Technical specifications:

• Year:  2018
• Duration:  121 min.
• Country:  Japan
• Directed by:  Hirokazu Koreeda
• Screenplay:  Hirokazu Koreeda
• Genre:  Drama
• Cast:  Kirin Kiki, Lily Franky, Sakura Ando, ​​Mayu Matsuoka and Sosuke Ikematsu