From: "John Beamish" 

Ok, Janel ... as requested:

Valerie's opinion is easy to sum up:  she liked it.  I quizzed her about
what she liked most about it and, basically, she simply liked the way the
story developed.

My opinion ... more complex.  The movie was okay, but I found it to be a
bit too Hollywood. (Some spoilers follow.)   Basic theme:  the person out
of
place.  That works okay but, just in case the viewer missed it, the same
theme repeats ad nauseum in the story line.  Language issues.  Height
(Murray towers over Japanese figures he deals with).  Age (Murray is so
much older than just about everyone else he interacts with).  Marriage (his
is old, Charlotte's is new).  His life (his wife is interested in carpet
samples while he's in a completely different culture).

I wasn't looking for plot but I was looking for character development
(heck, I'd have been happy with simply peeling back some layers of the
onion just to see his motivation).  There's precious little to find.  Fair
enough, I suppose:  Murray's character is a grizzled veteran of life's wars
so he's not likely to develop ... so show us how he creates situations in
which the other characters grow because of him.  But that doesn't ever seem
to happen.

One morning Murray wakes up and discovers that he's brought a woman to bed.
He discovers this just as Charlotte knocks on his door and, during their
brief conversation, she discovers he's not alone.  Mild revelation:  It
seems that Murray is more disappointed that Charlotte found out than he is
worried that his wife will find out but nothing happens out of that.

I kept seeing two other movies unreel in my mind:  Breezy (Bill Holden's
character has a mid-life crisis) and Network (Bill Holden's character
interacts with Faye Dunaway).  Murray is cast as Bill Holden.  Well, I've
watched Bill Holden and Bill Murray is no Bill Holden.

In short:  it's a good movie (not a great one).  Murray can act (but we
know that from some scenes in Groundhog day where he plays it straight).
Scarlett Johansson's Charlotte is not a sufficiently interesting character
that we really care about how Charlotte and Bob Harris get along.

One tv review (Ebert and Roper?) said that people kept asking what Murray
whispers into Johansson's ear at the end.  I'd ask:  why would anyone care?
Murray's character has nothing worth passing along and Johansson's
character isn't worth following to see if she did learn something.


 wrote in message news:v04t30tf2dsqcctqdhnfg444fetg66ibti{at}4ax.com...
> On Thu, 26 Feb 2004 11:27:08 -0500, "John Beamish"
>  wrote in message news::
>
> >And I've been looking forward to watching it.  (What the heck, I'll rent
it
> >and get points with Valerie!)
> >
>
> Let us know both of your opinions!

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