Aging American movie start Bob Harris (Bill Murray) arrives in Tokyo to film a Japanese whiskey commercial. Meanwhile, young college graduate Charlotte (Scarlett Johansson) is in Tokyo with her celebrity-photographer husband. Charlotte is bored, unhappy, and assessing her life and young marriage when she meets Bob, who is also distressed by work and his family life. With each character harboring angst and set against the backdrop of the isolating, foreign city, the two develop an unusual friendship. Their affection grows into an uneasy romance, constantly navigating through feelings of connection, desire, and perceived appropriateness.
I find myself struggling to peg down my thoughts on this equivocal film. I mean, I suppose I generally liked it. Beautifully shot, semi-humorous, and satisfyingly sad, there was a lot to like about it. I loved Scarlett Johansson’s performance and Bill Murray is always delightful, in his wooden sort of way. The film pits a character in her quarter-life crisis with one in his mid-life crisis—as someone between the two, I found their plights unjustifiably fascinating.
On the flip side, I had two issues with the film. The first was the use of Japan and the Japanese as a caricature of “foreign otherness”. While Coppola succeeded in portraying the unmistakable aura of Tokyo, the accuracy ended there. To me, Japan was nothing but welcoming, accommodating, and accessible. To see two characters moping in their hotel rooms, staring out at the confusing ‘other’ and chaffing at uncomfortable interactions with the populace felt like an unkind misrepresentation for the sake of story. Secondly, this didn’t make for a particularly entertaining plot. I mean, I suppose the first act—in which our two main characters hardly interact and remain distressed, individually—was necessary as character development to convince us of their unlikely connection. But I found myself just tolerating it.
Like I said—I liked this film. I liked a lot about it. But I wanted to love it and didn’t. That seems to be unfairly painting my takeaway.