Am I the only one who thought the mother was a prostitute?

d'oh

My husband (who watched the movie with me) thought she was a prostitute too. I kept waiting for the end to reveal where she had been. My only qualm was when the movie ended it didnt answer some questions, such as-
exactly how long were they living like that?
where WAS the mother?
How did they finally get 'discovered'?

If you look on WIKIPEDIA you will see the real events that inspired the movie. The mother had hooked up with a new boyfriend and only when she saw the childrens story on the news did she come clean and turn herself in.

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I already had that thought when she was putting lipstick on her lips before 'going to work', while talking to her oldest son.

I think the film leaves it up to the viewer to decide whether she is a prostitute or not. There are hints at it such as the lipstick, but it's not like there is overwhelming evidence.

In the film, when Akira calls her work number and asks for her, the man who answers at that extension greets with, ''mens' clothing''.
I don't think the mother was an actual prostitute. Her sickly sweet demeanor and obsession with fame portray a very selfish & immature woman with no idea of reality. It's damn disgusting.

[deleted]

Maybe she was a Karoake singer?





Im the Alpha and the Omoxus. The Omoxus and the Omega

The hostess thing is really big in Japan. Thats not prostitution - it just involves late nights singing karaoke with business men and keeping a smile on your face. I think the director points quite directly at at that - it fits with the late call to karaoke, the dropping off home by taxi and he way she talks to and about her clients. She also seems to have a day job. But I think it's key to the story that there is this one guy in the background. Not a succession of johns.

I think the mother is one of the most intriguing characters. At first we see her as a young single mum doing her best at coping with adversity. Japan can be very unforgiving for single mums - or for all kinds of people on that society's fringes. She loves her kids in her way and is trying to hold the family together. We know the family had been split up before as Akira mentions to the junior convinience store cashier. She's working all hours to try and make ends meet. She's desparately unhappy (Akira observes her crying as she's waking up) yet she does her best to keep up the moral of the kids with cheerful banter, makeup and games.
But at the same time she's mentally unhinged. She's totally bought into this guy from the hostessclub who says he's going to marry her and make everything ok as she explains to Akira on the balcony. She's being taken for a ride - yet she wants to believe, for the benefit of her children, that this guy could be the big break she needs to make it all right. So she goes away with him for a few days. The kids seem to cope ok (in her mind), so she does it again. And somewhere along the line there is a breaking point where the can block out their existence. Maybe the guy convinces her that they dont need her, that she deserves her happiness too, that Akira is old enough now. She believes what she wants to believe, allows herself to be pursuaded. Somewhere along the way while apart from the kids she slips from airhead wishful thinking to willful disregard.

The real "bad guy" in this movie is not the mother, it's the community surrounding the children. Akira openly tells both fathers that mum has gone away. "maji da!" ("no way!") is all taxi dad can say. All the convenience store staff know. The landlady from upstairs with the pugdog knows. Plenty of other people if they could just open their eyes could see. But everyone is tied up in the formality of their structured society and the firm belief that it must be someone elses responsibility. I think the title "Nobody Knows", is ironic. Everybody knows.

So whether or not the mother is a prostitute I think distracts from the main theme of this film. It's not a film about her, although she is a beautifully rich character. It's a comment on the difficulties of large scale Japanese metropolitain society. Its a geat film about an aspect of Japan not often explored.