Beautiful cinematography, not the greatest plot.

Rating: Null/10 (26 August 2005)

Well, the movie was shot very beautifully.
I do wish ,however, that at the end of the film, the Japanese culture could have been explored through the eyes of less shallow, changed American people.
Why should I feel sorry for a girl who is bored with her life and who is a snob? And why should I feel sympathetic towards a man who is making 2 million dollars and is whining about it? Right there, one can easily see how unhealthy the modern American society is! At the end of the film, I do not see them changing their internal worlds. He is not any happier or nicer, she is still a confused person. The truth is these people were not working on making their family lives happier and I doubt that Bill Murray's character would go home and try to be a better husband or a happier father.
What was so bad about Giovanni Ribisi's character or his friends' that Scarlett's character had to laugh at them openly? I, as a viewer was not given a reason to think that she was any better than them. I understood the whole searching for spiritual life on Scarlett's side, but for somebody who was Yale educated, it was foolish for her to think so low of people. The problem with a storyline is that it had two lives that intersected for no purpose but for some unrealistic hanging out! The story line started well, but the characters could have taught each other something useful.