Lost in transaltion, or gained?: I Wish

I'll give the Japanese filmmakers who put together I Wish some credit, as it's a cool idea and a real technical challenge to do a film about preteens filmed almost entirely of and about a small group of preteen boys. This film tells the story of two brothers approx 10 years old, one living in Tokyo w/ father, a would-be rock musician and most likely an irresponsible if lovable dad, and the other recently moved w/ his mother to her hometown in southern Japan on the cusp of a live volcano spewing ash. The brothers communicate by phone a lot; most of the movie is centered on the brother living w/ the mom. What the boys want of course is to bring their parents together and to reunite the family. All very sweet but the movie never gets off the ground - there's not enough plot, there's no particular conflict, once the motive is established nothing much happens, at least over the course of the first hour, which is as far as we got. It's hard to say whether the film loses in translation - clearly, there are some cultural references that eluded me, and it's more difficult to follow the film if you don't know the Japanese landscape and cultural landmarks - or actually gains in translation, as it may be that the same story told and set in the U.S. would feel completely bland and familiar, whereas this one at least let us see inside the workings of a Japanese middle school, ordinary routine Japanese shopping malls, and just different cultural behavior: notably the insouciance with which Japanese families send their children off to school alone, crossing railroad tracks etc. - a real sense of trust and faith that we've totally lost in the U.S.