It stars Setsuko Hara and Yoko Tsukasa as a mother and daughter, and is based on a story by Ton Satomi.

Mamiya instead offers his employee, Goto (Keiji Sada), as another match, but Ayako confides privately in Akiko that she has no wish of getting married.

Thinking that her mother has known about this, an unhappy Ayako goes home to question her and then leaves for her colleague and friend Yuriko's (Mariko Okada) place in a huff.

[2] In a 1973 review, Nora Sayre of The New York Times praised the performances of Hara and Tsukasa and wrote, "Love is hardly mentioned when the subject of marriage arises.

But enormous affection between parents and children, and among old friends, is revealed as it rarely is on screen: often, it's shown through the small jokes that intimates make at one another's expense.

"[5] In Time Out, Trevor Johnston wrote that "the film offers as much pure aesthetic pleasure as, say, Wong Kar-Wai, but it’s ultimately on a human level that it’s most affecting...Hara's undemonstrative yet knowing half-smile in the final scene registers the inevitable paradox of loving and losing.

"[6] Critic Derek Malcolm lauded it as "a commentary on Japanese mores that [surpasses] nationality and [manages] universal appeal.

"[2] In 2007, The Criterion Collection released the film as part of the DVD box set Eclipse Series 3: Late Ozu.