Like Someone in Love (2012)

The first strange thing about this pic is its nationality. AFI includes it in an Iranian film festival because of late director Abbas Kiarostami, yet it's set in Tokyo with entirely Japanese dialog and was produced in large part by a French company. It gets stranger.

Akiko is a college student whose abusive self-described fiance, Noriaki, does not trust her, but neither does he know about her prostitution on the side. One client, retired prof Takashi, wants her only for platonic company. Noriaki takes him for her grandpa, and Takashi decides to keep up the charade, feeling protective toward Akiko in light of her precarious position.

Doesn't sound strange yet, does it? Well, it doesn't sound like much of a plot to sustain 109 minutes either. It moves so slowly that I spaced out in the first act and hadn't picked up on Akiko's prostitute status ("Wait, what's she doing at a total stranger's apartment?").

The first scene in particular had me concerned. Spending 15+ minutes in a restaurant, with Akiko alternately sitting alone, with a co-worker, or with her pimp, it started to look like the next My Dinner with Andre. The camerawork (insofar as you can call lack of movement "work") in that scene reminded me of Play. Oh, we don't see the characters from a distance, but sometimes it's not focused on anyone in particular, with Akiko herself talking offscreen a lot. A static, awkward angle feels about as comfortable as squeezing yourself into a locker. Fortunately, the rest of the movie isn't shot like that, but we still get long periods with nothing remarkable happening.

Arguably worse than the beginning is the ending. Dramatic? You bet. Resolved? Hardly. I wasn't the only Meetup member to be surprised when the credits rolled. It left us all wondering what the point was. I'm guessing realism for its own sake, which I find hard to appreciate with so little story. I hope it didn't have a moral, because the only one I can readily infer is "Don't try to help someone in dire straits."

There is probably nothing a critic hates to say more than "I don't know what to make of it." So instead, I'll say it kinda sucks. It certainly doesn't make me want to check out more of Kiarostami. Only communing with my group made the night worthwhile to me.