On the Film Adaptation of “When Life Suddenly Takes a Turn”

When Life Suddenly Takes a Turn: Twenty Letters Between a Philosopher Living with Terminal Cancer and a Medical Anthropologist (co-authored with Makiko Miyano; Shobunsha, 2019) has been adapted for the screen by director Ryusuke Hamaguchi under the title All of a Sudden. The film is scheduled for release later this year.

It has already been five years since I first met Ryusuke Hamaguchi. We have spoken several times since then, and throughout those years he returned repeatedly to this book, seeking to bring its spirit to life in the screenplay.

Although the original book and the screenplay differ greatly on the surface, the same line that Makiko and I once drew runs quietly beneath them both. It is my heartfelt hope that those who encounter this film will take up that line, which Hamaguchi has so carefully inherited and carried forward, and extend it in new directions of their own.