Virtually all Ozu's films specialize in Japanese middle class home dramas: getting a steady job, raising children, arranging their marriages, settling family disputes, taking care of grandparents. An Autumn Afternoon remains a fitting finale in that tradition.

Gorgeously captured in gentle hues, Ozu opens with a pair of exquisitely framed shots of billowing factory smoke before honing in on the middle aged businessman Shuhei Hirayama (Chishu Ryu, a familiar face in Ozu films) at his desk. A young woman enters to inform her boss that a 24 year old secretary is getting married, setting the stage for what is to come. A widower, Hirayama has a 24 year old daughter (Shima Iwashita as Michiko) who cares for him and his younger son, but up to this point he hasn't considered her marriage plans. Immediately he is visited by an old friend, who has a candidate in mind for Michiko.

Ozu aficionados will expect signature train references early, and they won't be disappointed. Although not seen, a train whistle blows within the first minute and is followed with engine sounds. Similar moments repeat at other times, emphasizing Japan's transitory times—social, cultural, economic, political.

Although still highly patriarchal (most clearly indicated by younger son Koichi's cavalier insistence that his sister serve him as soon as he arrives home), Ozu carefully sketches in hints of change. A subplot involving Kirayama's older son Koichi (Sada Keiji) illustrates a household with a dominant wife, who controls the family finances. Koichi reluctantly borrows money for a needed refrigerator due to his wife's insistence and later bends to his wife's strong objections when he attempts to purchase some coveted golf clubs. Koichi remains the breadwinner, but he's obviously not the boss of the household.

Hirayama initially insists that his daughter is far too young for marriage, but he changes his mind when seeing his old middle school teacher (Eijiro Tono as “The Gourd”). Now running a generic noodle shop, the older man is also a widower with a middle-aged daughter who has cared for him for many years. Now a lonely, broken man who drinks far too much, Hirayama abruptly realizes that this is not the future family model that he desires for himself and daughter. A habitual drinker, he cuts his liquor intake that evening and begins to press Michiko to get married.

Parallels readily come to mind with Late Spring, especially since Rhy plays the father in both films; however, An Autumn Afternoon contains far less intimacy between father and daughter—as if Michiko is performing her duties more from traditional expectations than from truly heartfelt devotion to her father. She also doesn't object to the notion of being married as the daughter in the earlier film, but she actually does secretly pine for one man. Restraint is her modus operandi, illustrated most clearly when her father apologizes for his part in being a roadblock to her future happiness. Credit Ozu for economically communicating this dramatically. We neither see her break down on screen nor do we ever see her eventual husband, but Ozu realizes that these scenes simply aren't necessary for his portrait.

Once again, some of the most powerful emotions evoked are due to Ozu's minimalist imagery. Like a Japanese garden, the filmmaker effectively uses his long corridor and pillow shots and steady camera along with a familiar team of actors who realize that their eyes and small movements carry the narrative—especially when photographed by such a demanding artist.