Before the Coffee Gets Cold: Four people’s hopes to turn back time — with caveats

? UNDER THE LAMPLIGHT-

Turn back the clocks: Somewhere in a small back alley of Tokyo sits a cafe, manned by a father, his young daughter, and cousin. Not much is special about this coffee shop, which has continued to quietly serve its customers for over a hundred years — but for the few that know, the coffee shop offers the chance to travel back in time. Toshikazu Kawaguchi’s Before the Coffee Gets Cold tells the stories of four visitors hoping to return to their past — to tell the father of their adoptive daughter of her life, to confront a man who left them and to meet a husband who has since lost his memory to Alzheimer’s. But these emotional trips are beset by rules: Customers must sit in a particular seat, cannot attempt to change events, and must return to the current day before the coffee gets cold — failure to comply will leave the customer stuck in the past and a ghost to the present.