PEN15
Save this article to read it later.
Find this story in your accountsSaved for Latersection.
Wow, what a gorgeous little short film.
Yuki explores the life of Mayas mom.
Written and directed by Erskine, it is a love letter to the woman who raised her.
Yuki even gets her own version of the credits with real-life photos from back in the day.
It doesnt get discussed much, but Mutsuko Erskine is displaced in time just like Maya and Anna.
Since shes Maya Erskines real-life mom, she is also playing a 20-years-younger version of herself.
Ive often wondered what its like for Maya and her mother to reenact these old moments of discord.
Surely you cant help but get stuck in a younger yous mind-set again.
Lets dig into it.
The cold open is devastating.
Being a merch girl at her age: a hellish proposition.
Yuki sets up a table with CDs at a restaurant where Fred plays a gig.
Yuki starts her day in a real Marge Simpson place.
Shes making breakfast for a family that isnt entirely grateful for her efforts.
Maya and Shuji are fighting all over the house.
Girl needs some allies!
After her depressing morning of underappreciated labor, Yuki goes to the Asian grocery store.
A car cuts her off, so Yuki winds up taking the handicapped spot.
To sell her deception, she walks with a limp throughout the grocery store.
(Inspiring to know where Maya gets her commitment to the bit.)
Who has never even met Shuji?!?!?!
But with whom she still has hella chemistry!!
Shujis absentee dad is an enigma.
Hes also a drummer, which is incredible.
Mom has a bang out.
It seems like he abandoned Yuki while she was still pregnant, and she got with Fred soon after.
He considers this the real end of the relationship, which is some classic dude stuff.
You moved on so quickly after I abandoned you and our unborn child; thats cold.
Okay, my guy.
Yuki and her former beau go for a walk through their regrets.
The camerawork is loose and 70s as all get out, adding to the art-film vibe of the episode.
Apparently, before she was a mom, Yuki was hella cool.
Stevie Wonder gave her a bag and made her husband mad with jealousy.
I love this peek into Yukis past.
Kids dont think about our parents as human beings, especially ones who existed before us.
Girl, wait until the1999 MTV Movie Awards.
Then youll know who Stevie Wonder is.
Its also really affecting to see the similarities between Yuki and her daughter.
Yuki thought she was ugly, which makes the fight in Three that much more upsetting.
The mother-daughter relationship is an extremely fraught one.
Until now,Pen15has mostly explored it from the daughters POV.
But when her first husband seems averse to meeting Shuji, its a total boner killer.
Parenthood is an inherently future-oriented identity.
You are stewarding the next generation, not looking back on the past or any alternate present.
Frankly, its a miracle of parenting that hes the swaggering dickhead we see.
But instead, Fred just gets it done, almost like hes a full partner in their relationship.
That call about the tour?
Dad took care of it.
1 passed out drunk in his hotel room at 6:40 p.m. 2 makes dinner for his kids and listens when she talks.
In bed with the Good Husband, Yuki tells a story about working as a translator.
She always feels trapped between her life in America and her past in Japan.
Shes always worried about being too Japanese or not Japanese enough.
It echoes a lot of what Maya went through in the last episode.
But the difference is that Yuki chose this life.
