The Key

On the far side of middle age, Kenji Kenmochi is having a mid-life crisis. An expert curator of Japanese curio, he is unemployed, although money has never seemingly been a problem. And for the last year, he has routinely been getting injections from Dr. Soma to help with his waning sexual virility, something about which he doesn't want his younger wife, Ikuko Kenmochi, to know. She does, however, know about his visits to see Soma, something that she in turn doesn't want her husband to know. A frequent guest in their home is Soma's intern, Kimura, who is dating the Kenmochis' daughter, Toshiko Kenmochi. Despite the serious state of their relationship, Kimura doesn't plan ever to marry Toshiko in the differences in their socioeconomic status, Kimura, from a humble background, feeling he not worthy. Kimura being in their lives leads to Kenmochi using him to feel more like a man in the only way he believes he can in his circumstance. Ikuko and Kimura individually, in turn, are playing their own games within this collective toward their own individual end goals.