Oof. Okay, so I’m just going to get right out with it: Norwegian Wood is not a great movie. That is admittedly coming from someone who has never read the novel of the same name by Haruki Murakami, upon which the film is based. Apparently, this book is a big deal—based upon the number of copies sold, every household in Japan owns a copy of this book. It’s that universal. In fact, the most frustrating part about watching this adaptation is that the entire time, I was thinking to myself, “This must be a phenomenal book.” Unfortunately, it didn’t translate well, despite incredibly solid efforts made on every front. I wish it had.

See, the problem was that I went into the film expecting something really good—Murakami is my roommate’s favorite author, and so I sort of expected the film to live up to the standards that my roomie had placed in my mind. That being said, the film definitely doesn’t give any help. It opens with images of 3 young people playing, laughing and cavorting. The narrator (it’s unclear who the narrator is at this point) tells us that he’s been friends with Kizuki (Kengo Kora) all his life, and that Naoko (Rinko Kikuchi) was always a friend of Kizuki’s, so the three of them spent time together. Then, one of the guys commits suicide. Well, I guess that one’s not the narrator, then.

The problem is, after that rather staggering opening, the narrator, revealed to be Toru Watanabe (Ken’ichi Matsuyama, of Death Note fame, which I found rather amusing), just moves to Tokyo and goes to school there. Because the film takes place in the 1960′s, there are riots going on and such, but nothing fantastically interesting happens. I’m all for movies with a slow build, but the problem is, after that suicide, nothing significant happens for the first hour. I was struggling to stay awake. Watanabe strikes up a relationship with his dead friend Kizuki’s pal Naoko, and there’s a bunch of melodrama, and then Naoko goes off the deep end. The thing is, there really isn’t much in terms of character development, so all of these revelations are kind of inconsequential.

That being said, the second hour of the film is significantly better. By that point, not only are you finally invested in the characters, but director Anh Hung Tran finally starts emotionally charging the scenes the way he should have from the beginning of the film. However, the way that he does this (and apparently, this must be the way Murakami did the same thing) is to spend almost the entire second half of the film talking about some form of sexual activity and occasionally, how it relates to dying. It’s equal parts incredibly uncomfortable, hilarious, and mildly morbid.

Now, I’d like to think I’m not exactly a prude, but I do believe in

tasteful discussion of sex and that when it is shown, the human form should be used for artistic purposes. The numerous depictions of sex are tastefully done, I’ll admit, but the dialogue is so laden with unveiled come-ons and discussions of anatomy that there doesn’t seem to even be a point to it after a while. By the end of the film, I’m pretty sure my count was two suicides, six orgasms, one handjob, and over 50 minutes of dialogue focusing solely on penises and female lubrication. If you’re going to do something like that, at least give it a purpose.

A friend of mine who’s very familiar with the work tells me that this lack of meaning is the point, that Murakami wrote the book, in essence, as an existential love story, capturing the aimlessness of the counter-culture generation. He tells me that the text fully links and explores those ideas, and I’m sure he’s totally right, but the problem is, existentialism rarely translates well to cinema—note the lack of the critically-acclaimed adaptation of The Stranger—and Norwegian Wood sadly is no exception.

The sad part is, Tran and the cast do such a phenomenal job—the movie is technically superb, from the score to the cinematography, and all the characters are utterly believable, even with the preposterous dialogue, thanks to exceptional dedication on the part of the actors. It’s just not a story that is exciting or enveloping enough to want me to watch 133 minutes of it. It sure does give it it’s all, though.

Synopsis:

Upon hearing the song “Norwegian Wood,” Toru (Matsuyama) remembers back to his life in the 1960s, when his friend Kizuki killed himself and he grew close to Naoko, Kizuki’s girlfriend. As the two try, in very different ways, to contend with their grief, Toru forms a bond with another woman, Midori.