Music camouflages it's weak humour and poor script.

Rating: Null/10 (20 April 2004)

This movie had a very, very small script that I think could have been written within approximately 3 days. How it could have ever won an Oscar is beyond me, but for me it is clear that Francis Ford Coppola's darling daughter needs much work on her writing skills.
The most clear sign of weakness was the overuse of music. The movie is chockfull with "alternative" rock music, which was mostly nice, but I could not help but think this was an all too easy way to fill up the movie and camouflage the lack of story and pace. And all the music was just existing pop and rock, not specifically made for the film. I think it is weak to just grab you collection of favorite CD's and put the best parts of those in your movie and try to make it better that way. If music is going to play a major role in a film I would like it to be either originally written for the movie or something I haven't heard before. I despise the lack of true creativity here, I had the same problem with the Kill Bill films.
Now, of course, there are plenty of motion pictures that use a lot of existing music to add to the atmosphere, like American Graffiti, and I understand that in this picture the intention was the same. However I felt that this movie could have been so much more had it been written less poorly, if it had more and stronger dialogue, and some tragicomical humour which I mostly missed.
The humour in this comedy is not ha-ha-comedy, but it does not appeal in any other way either and is therefore failed as well. I know the Japanese can be very odd but this is not something new, nor is it shown in an amusing way. The movie hits rock bottom when Murray and Johansson go out in Tokyo with all kinds of Japanese rent-a-friends and start dancing and singing to various awful music. The scene was tormentingly long as well.
On a more positive note, the performances were all right and Murray and Johansson admittedly make the film a lot better than it could have been (i.e. a turd). The imagery of Tokyo is also pleasant though sometimes shortlived.
And it won at least one Oscar. So there's your recipe for an Oscar film:
-let an actor or actress play a role against typecasting that he/she has not done before (Bill Murray in a serious role, Charlize Theron as an overweight serial killer, Nicole Kidman with a nose job, Dustin Hoffman as an autist and the list goes on and on).
-write a weak romantic story with a twist and cover up it's weakness with lots of music to add feeling;
(-make sure the Oscar committee will vote in favour of Daddy's little girl because she's the daughter of Francis Ford "The Godfather" Coppola.)
As for romantic stories with a twist watch the infinitely superior Groundhog Day with Bill Murray. Now that movie actually WAS Oscarworthy.
5 out of 10