A lovely, captivating, gentle film

Rating: 10/10 (18 February 2005)

What a lovely film.
I don't know Bill Murray well, and had never seen Scarlet Johannssen before, and didn't know what the film was going to be about. But after 5 minutes, I was completely captivated by the film, and felt in complete sympathy with the two main characters.
I particularly liked the gentle feel which the film produced. Very un-American and very European in its underplayed, lovingly filmed attitude.
My only criticism is that it verged on the xenophobic in places. Instead of sympathising with the couple being baffled by the Japanese culture, I didn't like the way the film sometimes made that culture seem wrong, and I felt occasionally like shouting "of course it's different: just accept it and get on with it !"
And - I'm sure this has been said before - it's a superb adaptation of Noel Coward's "Brief Encounter" theme.