Soulmates

Rating: 9/10 (9 June 2014)

When I first watched the film, I was quite disappointed. I expected a complete different and much funnier movie. Some days ago I gave the film a second chance. This time I knew what expected me and what was the movie about, so I watched it with different eyes. And I liked it.
The first 30 minutes contain a lot of subtle humor thanks to a great performance by Bill Murray who plays the aging actor Bob Harris and would have deserved an Oscar for it. His facial expressions are absolutely fabulous and made me both laugh and also pity him. His marriage doesn't mean to him what it may have meant 25 years ago: His wife worries about meaningless things like the color of a carpet, the marriage lacks of romantic, words like "I love you" aren't spoken or they are spoken without much emotion.
In a Japanese hotel Bob meets Charlotte, a young and beautiful woman, who doesn't really know where her life's heading to. She's a graduated philosophy student without a job and is married to a photographer who works during the day and leaves Charlotte alone in her hotel suite. Scarlett Johansson, who is a bit underrated in my opinion, gives a wonderful performance and shows us Charlotte's sadness and feelings of being a bit lost in Japan in a great way. It's almost unbelievable that Johansson wasn't even 18 (but playing a mid-20s) during production. Bob knows how Charlotte feels and he can identify himself with her. The two spend the next days together and Bob seems to feel important for another person the first time in a while and Charlotte meets the first person she can talk to seriously in Japan and who understands her and her fears.
The most wonderful thing about the movie is in my opinion, that I'm not really sure if the protagonists were in love or rather something like soulmates who gave security to each other and filled each other's life with emotions like importance, joy and happiness which they haven't felt in a very long time.