Where's the love?

Rating: 3/10 (27 October 2008)

Sophia Copola relies on paralleling the lives of two lonely people to substantiate their eventual coupling. They're bonded by proximity and it's a one-dimensional set-up. I don't sense any chemistry between these two actors, and the story doesn't do much to establish a connection beyond the contrived. It's such a cheap ploy to make their significant others out to be bad guys to justify their relationship. Sophia spends too much time establishing how different Japan is from the U.S. and little time as to why these two fall for each other so quickly. The main characters joke about Japan and its culture, while exploiting it for their own amusement. The city was a far more interesting character, and yet it was treated as a wacky, disposable backdrop to these miserable people. They make no effort to appreciate their surroundings. Scarlett should have been listening to a tape on Japanese instead of whatever self-help crap she had playing. But these people don't do anything to better their situation. They're miserable because of some false sense of propriety and obligation. Because of the characters' passivity, I didn't care about them or their troubles or this movie.