Starring Toni Collette and Gotaro Tsunashima
Directed by Sue Brooks
Written by Alison Tilson
A Samuel Goldwyn Films release
Rated R; 107 minutes
Sparing in its plot but generous in charting the emotional
travels of its female protagonist, Japanese Story is an
oddly touching film, thanks in large part to a vibrant, revealing
performance by Toni Collette.
Collette has specialized in finding both the strength and
the vulnerability in a wide range of characters. Her turn
in About a Boy, playing a weepily suicidal flake, gave weight
to that film while also being bleakly funny. She also helped
both lighten up and deepen The Sixth Sense. Her scene near
the end of that film in the car with Haley Joel Osment, when
he convinces her about his gift by bringing Collette a message
from her long-dead mother, rings more emotional bells for
me than all of Bruce Willis' angst and anger in the rest of
the film (I admit it, I have mother issues).
In Japanese Story, (which takes place entirely in Australia,
by the way), Collette's gift for finding the comedy in tragedy
and vice versa is given full rein, helped in large part by
Sue Brooks' sensitive direction. Visually, Brooks and director
of photography Ian Baker make the most of visual contrasts,
from the red sand and blue skies of Western Australia's Pilbara
desert to the differences in skin texture between Collette
and her co-star Gotaro Tsunashima, playing Japanese businessman
Hiromitsu. Her hands are rough and knuckled; he's as smooth
as a polished rock.
Collette's character Sandy Edwards, a geologist and partner
in a computer software company, is saddled with babysitting
Hiromitsu as he tours the remote vastnesses of Western Australia
(she's hoping to make a business deal with his father's company).
Her annoyance and impatience at dealing with this Japanese
man, who barely acknowledges her existence, will strike a
chord in anyone who has been forced together on a business
trip with someone they barely know and couldn't care less
about. For his part, Hiromitsu finds Sandy too loud, too aggressive
and, well, too Australian for his taste.
A situation ripe for a plot twist, which Japanese Story
duly supplies: Sandy and Hiromitsu become stranded in the
desert and have to rely on each other to escape with their
lives. Their shared experience leads to a brief, seemingly
casual love affair that metamorphoses into something both
stranger and deeper than either character is prepared for.
It's a simple - you might say overly simple - story, almost
fable-like in its lack of incident. There's also a clumsiness
in the early scenes, as screenwriter Alison Tilson works too
hard to flatly state her themes (Sandy can't deal with death,
she's cut off from real human contact). Yet by tying what
story there is so closely to Sandy's emotional journey, Japanese
Story achieves a power of its own.
Collette seems freed by not having to play either an American
or a Brit (she's Australian herself) and she easily lets us
into her guarded character's inner life. In her first sexual
encounter with Hiromitsu, she undresses with a nice mix of
self-consciousness and authority that seems appropriate to
this woman in a man's world.
Japanese Story reminded me of two very dissimilar
films: Lost in Translation and The Deep End.
Like Lost, Japanese Story plays off the cultural
chasms between West and East while creating a safe space for
its two protagonists to connect. Like The Deep End,
with its fantastic central performance by Tilda Swinton, Japanese
Story sees the value in a story about the emotional unfreezing
of a strong woman. Deep overloads us with melodramatic
plot devices, Japanese drains them away, but both are
brought home by actresses of intelligence, skill and emotional
nakedness.
Japanese Story won't be for everyone; it's slow and
sometimes a bit didactic. But it has the power to stick with
you where bigger, busier films often don't.
Click here to read
an interview with Toni Collette.
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