Yet Another One of Those...

Rating: 6/10 (8 March 2004)

Another pedestrian take on one man's mid-life crisis associated with a young woman's ennui.
Granted, this is a well-crafted movie. Impeccable acting, great cinematography, good pace... Effective in communicating said ennui but lacking in subtlety, depth, breadth, or interesting human characters. Nominally set in Japan to serve as an excuse for arbitrary beautiful images, but representing a strong "Western" penchant for self-absorption.
The two main characters have a conspicuously pseudo-romantic relationship ("Oh! Do they love each other? In which way?") which evacuates anything around them, including Charlotte's husband ("Is he cheating on her?") and Bob's wife (conveniently absent from the scene). Every character, including the main ones, is a one-dimensional "faire-valoir" for a fairly provincial feeling of displacement.
Altogether, an inward-looking gaze at boredom and closed-mindedness.