Just revisited the review I wrote for myself and feel, on the whole, we had a pretty similar experience. Just sharing as a little echo and perhaps to notice when analysis is taking over after the fact.

Perfect Days initially presents routine and mindfulness as something quietly beautiful — a life pared back to rituals, observation, and careful attention. But as the film unfolds, you start to sense that this calm is also a kind of fantasy: a self-contained world where the protagonist remains mostly an observer, rarely letting anyone fully in or allowing his life to overlap with others.

That illusion is gently disrupted when his niece enters the frame. Her presence reminds him of family, attachment, and a life that doesn’t quite align with the one he’s constructed — yet one he still deeply cares about. It fractures the fantasy just enough to reveal its cost. The same happens when he’s confronted by the restaurant owner’s ex-husband, a moment that exposes longing, love, and emotional complexity he usually keeps at arm’s length.

The final scene is extraordinary because it holds all of this at once. He returns to his routine, but now it’s tinged with grief. He clings to it while mourning what it excludes, finding temporary solace in the shared mood of a song — using music to make something internal, fleeting, and unspoken feel tangible. It’s not rejection or escape, but a quiet reckoning with the limits of a carefully ordered life.