‘Living in Two Worlds’ raises the bar for depictions of deafness

Mipo O’s “Living in Two Worlds” is a film with such good intentions, made with such diligence toward issues of representation, it feels unsporting to point out that it’s also a trifle dull. This decade-spanning tale of the growing pains of a young man (Ryo Yoshizawa) born to deaf parents is well acted and raises the bar for depictions of deafness in Japanese cinema, but in other respects it’s an archetypal message movie. It nevertheless marks a welcome return for O, whose ravishing downer drama “ The Light Shines Only There ” (2014) heralded the arrival of a major talent, only for her to drop off the radar after delivering a follow-up, “ Being Good ” (2015).

If you’re wondering what she’s been doing since then, the answer is simply that she found making feature films to be incompatible with the demands of raising two children..