Late Spring
A critical tendency opposing the "life cycle" theory emphasizes the "differences" in tone and intent between this film and other Ozu works that deal with similar themes, situations and characters. These critics are also highly skeptical of the widely held notion that Ozu regarded marriage (or at least the marriage in "Late Spring") favorably. As critic Roger Ebert explains, ""Late Spring" began a cycle of Ozu films about families... Did he make the same film again and again? Not at all. "Late Spring" and "Early Summer" are startlingly different. In the second, Noriko takes advantage of a conversational opening [about marriage] to overturn the entire plot... she accepts a man [as husband] she has known for a long time—a widower with a child." In contrast, "what happens [in "Late Spring"] at deeper levels is angry, passionate and—wrong, we feel, because the father and the daughter are forced to do something neither one of them wants to do, and the result will be resentment and unhappiness." Ebert goes on, "It is universally believed, just as in a Jane Austen novel, that a woman of a certain age is in want of a husband. "Late Spring" is a film about two people who desperately do not believe this, and about how they are undone by their tact, their concern for each other, and their need to make others comfortable by seeming to agree with them." The film "tells a story that becomes sadder the more you think about it." Ebert included the film in his "Great Movies" list.