Noah Murphy46
Newcomer
3 messages
joined Oct 2003
Here’s a few things I hated about this movie, though honestly, everything was garbage—from the plot and the acting to the humor, the filler scenes, the characters, and even that almost amateurish camerawork...
The story is an absolute disaster; if I were Japanese, I’d be suing them right now. I have no clue what the writer was trying to achieve, what the point of the plot was, or where the actual conflict lived... and don't even get me started on the characters. They are just terrible—shallow, poorly developed, and oversimplified (which is typical for American movies and writers—think Hemingway, for example). On top of the trash plot and weak characters, the film is agonizingly slow. You could maybe justify that pace if the story, dialogue, or characters actually had some substance, but in this case...
The dialogue is atrocious, and the director clearly had zero vision or idea of what she wanted to accomplish throughout the entire runtime. Like, 80-90% of the scenes are completely useless and contribute nothing to a plot that is itself pure filler, while the remaining 10-20% could have been executed so much better. I really can't stand it when unproven directors try to get experimental—I think that was her excuse (probably because she lacked a solid concept) to explore themes of "boredom" (an incredibly difficult topic to pull off) and lost souls (whose reasons for being lost are just plain stupid) who find nothing interesting about Japanese culture. That whole sense of American cultural superiority really rubbed me the wrong way, especially the way they mock the Japanese... it's such a Hollywood trope... bad. Just plain bad. Between those phone calls from his wife back in the States, the way they meet and interact, their relationship development, her husband or whoever, the driving scenes through Tokyo, the constant cultural clashes, and that blatant American arrogance and ignorance in every single moment—not to mention the awful humor...
I'm glad to hear she spent way less money than I originally assumed (my guess was at least 10 million). It makes me feel a bit better knowing that, given how expensive Japan is, it's hard to believe the production only cost 4 million dollars.
