With a cast of non-professional actors, the film follows a single father who lives in a village that is disrupted by a real estate project and the consequences its development will have to their environment.

Widower Takumi lives with his eight-year-old daughter Hana in the peaceful Japanese mountain village of Mizubiki.

He chops wood, smokes a cigarette, collects jugs of water from the forest stream, and occasionally hears gunshots, presumably from deer hunters.

However, the townsfolk unanimously voice their serious concerns about the consequences the site will have on their delicate water systems and scoff at the representatives' public relations tactics.

Takumi and others tell them that the septic tank capacity is not large enough for the planned development, and that sewage will leak into the groundwater they tap from wells.

The company is accused of only caring about profits and wanting to move recklessly fast in order to take advantage of limited-time pandemic subsidies.

"[6][7] The typography in the opening credits is reminiscent of Godard's work, a decision Hamaguchi made in the editing process.

[11] Evil Does Not Exist premiered on 4 September 2023 at the 80th Venice International Film Festival,[1] where it was selected in the main competition for the Golden Lion and was ultimately awarded the Grand Jury Prize.

The website's consensus reads: "Evil Does Not Exist stands on the battle lines between modern civilization and the natural world, offering a perspective that's as quietly measured as it is entrancing.

"[25] Metacritic, which uses a weighted average, assigned the film a score of 83 out of 100, based on 40 critics, indicating "universal acclaim".