Love and Other Cults (3 Stars)

The story follows Ai, a young girl passed from one unstable environment to another. When she is very small her mother leaves her with a religious cult that treats her as a kind of chosen child. Police eventually raid the compound and Ai is moved into a series of foster homes, each one shaping her in different and often damaging ways. She grows into a teenager who never feels at home anywhere. Every new group sees her as something to be owned or redefined. Ai responds by drifting, joining delinquents, petty criminals and sleazy adults who offer affection with conditions attached. The film cross-cuts with Ryota, a gentle boy who keeps falling orbit around her. Ryota wants to help but he never quite reaches her because Ai keeps slipping into the next situation that promises belonging.

The plot moves through a chain of subcultures: religious communes, street gangs, hostess bars, pseudo self-help groups. In each space Ai tries to become whatever the people around her expect. The result is a life assembled from borrowed identities rather than a stable sense of self. The film follows her attempts to escape this cycle while Ryota tries to anchor her, hoping she might return to him in a world that keeps swallowing her up.

Director Eiji Uchida uses Ai’s journey to argue that cults are not limited to religious sects; any group that demands absolute loyalty or reshapes a vulnerable person can function like one. He suggests that society creates these cult-like pockets by offering young people very few places where they feel valued without conditions. Ai is not drawn in by doctrine; she's drawn in by the simple desire to be seen. Uchida also critiques how institutions that claim to protect children often repeat the same mistakes as the fringe groups they condemn; they fail to give real emotional stability. Through Ryota he offers a counterpoint: genuine care is slow, patient and sometimes powerless, but it's the only thing that isn't manipulative.

The final message is bittersweet: identity is fragile when every community you meet tries to remake you, yet there's still hope in small acts of sincerity from people who refuse to control you.