Who do the dead belong to? This strange but thoughtful question is incredibly on brand for Japan’s Hirokazu Koreeda, and he explores it in one of his purest, most dream-like films to date. Built around three extraordinary performances, including one from first-timer Kuwaki Rumi, it’s a light yet somehow very profound study of grief that deals with death in an unusual but surprisingly cathartic way. Inevitably, family life features strongly, as it often does in Koreeda’s movies, but the fantastical elements of the plot make this more of a piece with 1998’s After Life than his recent run from Shoplifters to Monster.

The setting is “the not-too-distant future”, and a package of art supplies is being delivered by drone to Otone Komoto (Haruka Ayase), an artist and architect living in an affluent waterside suburb with her husband Kensuke (Daigo), a carpenter. Also in the post is an invitation from a company called REBirth, with the message “Don’t forget me.” The family cat has been missing for week, compounding the agony of losing her seven-year-old son Kakeru in a freak accident two years before, but Otone puts it to one side and continues with her latest project, designing a bespoke home for a fussy married couple.

The Komotos have been selected by REBirth to take advantage of their special offer to people who’ve lost loved ones to accidents or crimes — “A complimentary rental of our latest edition humanoid”. Kensuke thinks the offer is fishy and is instinctively suspicious of the company’s motives (“They’re hyenas,” he says, “cashing in on misfortune”). But Otone wants to hear them out, which is how they end up at REBirth’s shiny modernist offices, watching slick promo films advertising their cutting-edge fusion of AI and robotics.

The sales pitch is effective, especially when Otone encounters one of the company’s 3,000 humanoid robots — a child — in the cafeteria. “Could you tell?” she asks Kensuke, wide-eyed. He couldn’t, and that night Otone begins sorting through photographs, old clothes and family memorabilia to aid with Kensuke’s resurrection. Within days, a van arrives, and Kakeru is in the passenger seat — where he would always sit — in the clothes Otone has picked out for him. “I’m home,” he says, and Otone’s heart melts.

Kakeru’s “unboxing” is beautifully handled, with Otone running through the rules and instructions necessary for his care and upkeep, setting his intelligence level at age seven and learning how to charge his battery. Otone is besotted, but Kensuke is not. “It’s a Tamagotchi,” he scowls. “It’s a Roomba.” He even tries to keep the child-bot at arm’s length, telling, “I’m not your papa. Call me mister.” The tension this sets up is a gentle Ozu-style conflict, with the forward-thinking minded Otone all in and the digital dinosaur Kensuke firmly on the fence. But once Kakeru appears, it can only a matter of time before he accepts the child as his own.

But is he really his child? Koreeda goes to interesting places with his premise, refusing the Bad Seed route that an AI child might invite — instead, the director indulges the possibility that Kakeru can be good for the Komotos, especially for Kensuke. By the end, it is clear that Koreeda has taken the stuff of dystopian cyberpunk nightmares and turned it into an elegant, wistful fairytale, using elements as diverse as Pinocchio, Antoine de Saint-Exupéry’s The Little Prince and the Bible story (is it an accident that Kensuke is a carpenter?) — along with Yuta Bandoh’s ethereal soundtrack and Ryûto Kondô’s stunning visuals — to fashion a beautiful allegory in which all the main characters are reborn.

Everyone here is on top of their game, but special mention must made of Ayase; her work here is extraordinary. It will be fascinating to see what she does next.

Title: Sheep In The Box
Festival: Cannes (Competition)
Director/screenwriter: Hirokazu Koreeda
Cast: Haruka Ayase, Daigo, Kuwaki Rimu
Distributor: Neon
Running time: 2 hrs 6 mins