The cover of the DVD I rented gave away too much of the plot. I'll try to avoid doing this. The characters in "Early Spring" talk explicitly about jobs and families, so I'll take that as a cue to do the same.
"Early Spring" feels rough -- mostly drab scenery, stark conflicts, and direct behavior. The movie begins with a long stretch of static scene-setting, and then abruptly becomes event-rich. I won't detail the plot, but will say that it and the characters and their actions are completely believable. Nothing is exaggerated or simplified to artificially enhance the drama or make a point.
Many of the characters are recent arrivals to the middle class, thanks to jobs on lower rungs of corporate offices. Business and personal lives are realistically interconnected, which is rare in movies. (Exceptions that come to mind are "The Sopranos," "The Apprenticeship of Duddy Kravitz," and movies by the Dardenne brothers.) Even when there is a collegial work atmosphere, the jobs can be punishing. The people don't fail to appreciate the benefits, and memories of poverty are fresh enough to keep them from romanticizing the alternatives. Orwell wrote that Dickens pointed to problems of capitalism, but offered no systematic program to fix them, and that the latter may be depth rather than shallowness. You could say the same about Ozu. "Early Spring" ends, not unlike Chekhov's "The Duel" and "Uncle Vanya," with resignation to circumstances, but also rebuilding and a sense of the redemptive value of work.
