Ryusuke Hamaguchi has often shown a fascination for the exchange of ideas as a form of process, negotiation and exploration, whether it’s the theater workshops in Drive My Car or the volatile town meetings with developers in Evil Does Not Exist . Conversation is action. Staff meetings and training sessions are a big part of the Japanese auteur’s All of a Sudden ( Soudain ), set primarily in a Paris elder-care facility run by a woman whose progressive treatment approach clashes with the realities of chronic understaffing and bottom-line-driven management.

The movie’s underlying question is whether individual care and compassion can survive the demographic decline of late-stage capitalism.…