What Can You Do About It?
After getting diagnosed with ADHD at 41-years-old, filmmaker Yoshifumi Tsubota begins to visit with and record his father’s 61-year-old cousin Makoto, who lives alone with a pervasive developmental disorder (also known as an autism spectrum disorder), over the course of several years. In the process of getting to know his semi-distant family member, in whom he finds a kindred spirit, Tsubota eventually turns the camera to himself to consider his own struggle with mental health. A touching, humorous, and diary-like dual portrait of men finding unknown parts of themselves through each other, What Can You Do About It? (originally titled Our Developmental Disorder) takes its title from an oft-repeated Japanese phrase within the film that signifies the pair’s shared commonsense attitude regarding their situations: “Datte shoganai janai.”
Available streaming territory: U.S. only