A minority opinion

Rating: 3/10 (20 November 2003)

I'm sorry, but I can't join the groundswell of praise for this film. I couldn't wait for it to be over. It was supposed to be a tender love story, but I never saw any real chemistry between the two lead characters. What this pretty young woman sees in this washed-up actor is beyond me. The dialogue never really establishes any chemistry between the two lead characters. As for the actors, I give it a split decision. Bill Murray gives a one-note performance as a bored middle-aged man. He reminds me of his character in the first half of "Groundhog Day," without the growth we see later in the film. I had the feeling he was as bored as the character he portrays. Scarlet Johanssen, on the other hand, rises above her mediocre material. She gets visibly more attractive as the film progresses. I wonder why the director--a woman--seemed so obsessed with Charlotte's body. She spends a lot of time in her underwear. The opening scene--a prolonged view of her backside covered by nearly transparent panties--seems there for titillation only. (For that matter, why do the two of them meet in a strip joint? Just to show off some Japanese woman's physique?) Also, the film is condescending toward the Japanese. Do we want to tell the Japanese that this is how we view them? Granted, some of the satire is directed at the Americans. When the hospital clerk assumes that they speak Japanese, this seems to be a satiric comment on the way Americans assume that everyone speaks English if we speak slowly and loudly enough. But it seems we are intended to sympathize with the "poor" Americans instead of laughing at their ineptness at confronting a foreign culture.