Like Someone in Love

Like Someone in Love is a lopsided triangle of a movie. The base of the triangle is Akiko, a perpetually tired and badgered call girl / university student. She wants to study or sleep and hence escape her troubles, but finds herself cornered by the expectations of her pimp, her grandmother, her boyfriend, her client and his nosy neighbour. These expectations of her are ones that she is at least partly responsible for creating. All but one of these characters are desperate for love in various ways that impact on Akiko over 24 hours.

In contract to Akiko's passive role, her client Takashi, a retired professor, steals the show; metamorphosing from lonely old man, through reluctant agony aunt to knight in shining Volvo. Ironically Akiko's volatile boyfriend, the shortest side of this triangle, has the most honest intentions of the three but also poses the most danger.

In Like Someone in Love we are watching ordinary people doing ordinary things while trying to cope with their own and each other's desires. Everything is laid back and taken at a measured pace. The very ordinary interiors are beautifully shot. While some reviewers didn't like the ending I preferred it to some of the more drawn out endings I've seen lately. I left the movie unwinding it back looking for a point at which Akiko could have avoided the tragedy to see if it was inevitable or not.

Ian's rating 3/5