Like Someone in Love (2012) User Reviews (45)

Playing To Type: How Could The Japanese Be So Unemotional Yet Project Such Potent Feelings?

[aghaemi · 8/10 · 18 June 2014]

For many Like Someone In Love may be a boring film to watch, but others are about to be engrossed by characters, their stories, interactions and even a drive through Tokyo. Or just be fascinated by the director's style. Or love the outside of main character Akiko (played by Rin Takanashi) and her appearance and hate her dilemma and inconsiderate duplicity. Or be engulfed in utter dismal sorrow at the treatment of Akiko's grandmother (played by Kaneko Kubota), which in terms of sheer emotional sadness is second only to Tomi Hirayama's life and death in Tokyo Story. Here is a film that in turn will induce absurdity, embarrassment, squirming, love, lust, hate, loathing, discomfort and pity. Akiko is a typical Tokyo girl. She is from Fukuroi in Shizuoka. She is pretty, has a fiancé and is in the city attending university. She, however, leads a surreptitious existence. We know this soon enough because we quickly put two and two together based on her conversation with her fiancé Noriaski (played by Ryo Kase) and the persons she shares a table with, a manipulative and filthy Hiroshi (played by Denden) and Nagisa (played by Reiko Mori). Foreign directors in Japan could go one of two ways. It could be a Lost in Translation (Sofia Coppola–Grade: A) or a Map Of The Sounds Of Tokyo (Isabel Coixet–Grade: C). Look for sequences in Tokyo and Yokohoma including the entrance to Daisan Keihin Road and Aoyama Book Centre. This is not Adrift In Tokyo, yet the drive at night is so commonplace and yet simultaneously so pivotal. How could one not grade this film more like the former film than the latter? As the film opens Akiko is heard but not seen. This is the first of many intrigues in a story where most things are implied and perceived and not spelt out for us. Then we see manipulation and deceit in multiple back-and-forths. The story unfolds in real-time as a peculiar drama in which patience is a necessity. Should one persevere the film literally makes an art form of making the viewer guess what is going on now and what will come next. Images are seen as reflections, one overhears conversations being conducted off-camera and one listens for the consequences without actually seeing the incidents' instigators. There are a few sequences of levity as with Akiko's interaction with Watanabe's neighbour and the latter person's with her brother. The earlier almost-monologue itself is delivered with breathless conviction. Speaking of which, each of the admittedly few cast members exudes an amazing ability to make the acting look easy when it is anything but. After all, it is anything but given that the character-driven focus and a lack of special effects and graphics will have to hold our attention. Yet, they do and at length. Ryo Kase, in particular, delivers such a convincing performance that I for one could not have foreseen after seeing him in Hachimitsu To Clover. He might as well not have been an actor in a film, but a boyfriend being lied to by a woman in his real life ("I am not lying to you," she assures him as she lies to him) and deceived as usual making Akiko a shameless wench in more than one way playing it straight as the uncaring female type while Noriaski is as bewildered as any man who has lost a woman to dishonesty. Make no mistake about it. Like Someone In Love's honesty and cruelty lies in showing Akiko as a casual and professional deceiver as she only outwardly frets to not be one or be unhappy about herself and her actions. Her acting is natural and matter-of-fact perhaps practiced from the life of a modern woman.

The film, however, disappoints many with its ending. Like the rest of this piece of art leaves much to the imagination of the audience. Using the word 'piece,' however, might be apropos given what the director likely wanted to convey at the end. Include in the disappointed group this writer. Likely a decade ago the joke would have been that the director and studio ran out of money. A more likely culprit is the Zen of Like Someone In Love. Zen is a Chinese Buddhist school that emphasized the now above all else. Earlier in the film Watanabe sings 'whatever will be will be' and alternately counsels Noriaski to let it go and advises Akiko to stop fretting and let things happen. As it turns out he is ignored and is wrong (in that sequence), but the director and writer's script direction is based upon emphasizing the present moment at every turn. Amazing as it is Like Someone In Love falls short because it assumes too much and does not give us a definite ending.

Like Someone In Love is quite impressive in another regard. The grandmother is never properly seen, but even with the Japanese capacity to sadden, her part is dismal. She is an old woman in a strange town longing for love and family having left her infirm husband behind for a day only to connect and bond and what happens instead is as sad as anything one could see. The build-up is masterful. Akiko's cruelty to, among others, the older generation and the latter's patience is indeed alternately reminiscent of Tokyo Story and The Only Son and even more cruel because it is so easily rectifiable and generational. Kudos goes to the direction and cinematography which depict such loneliness all around in a metropolis of thirteen million. It should be noted – because of the earlier emphasis on the Japanese sensibility - now that the story and direction come courtesy of an Iranian in this Franco-Japanese co-production, which in the latter case makes it by happenstance related to one of Japan's most controversial films In The Realm Of Senses. Akiko a beautiful woman with such an ugly life, behaviour and personality, except that is how it is usually, isn't it?

A Moody Film About The Impossibility of Love

[l_rawjalaurence · 7/10 · 5 May 2014]

Anyone expecting the classical forms of plot and characterization in this film will be sadly disappointed. LIKE SOMEONE IN LOVE has a minimal plot - a young student Akiko (Rin Takanashii), who may or may not be a prostitute, visits the home of elderly writer Takashi Watnabe (Tadashi Okuno); an affection develops between them, even though no physical contact takes place. Watnabe encounters Akiko's fiancé Noriaki (Ryô Kase), and convinces him that the two are related: Noriaki finds out that Watnabe is lying, and comes to his apartment and smashes a window, Abbas Kiarostami's focuses more on shifting moods - the sad resignation of Akiko as she goes about her business, neither enjoying nor appreciating it; the blank face of the cab-driver who takes her to Watnabe's apartment; the wistful looks of Watnabe as he looks at Akiko; for him she might be both desirable yet also an object of regret for his own lost youth. Kiarostami refuses to give us the security of explaining his characters' motivations; he leaves it up to us to make our own decisions. Comprised of long close-ups interspersed with shot/reverse shot sequences, the film is more focused on what is not said, rather than the dialog. What gives LIKE SOMEONE IN LOVE its true freshness is the quality of its visual imagery:: the film is chock- full of prison images: we see the protagonists sitting in Watnabe's car through the windscreen, the world outside reflected in the class; the bright lights of Tokyo streets fade into a blur as the yellow cab drives through seemingly endless long and straight boulevards; Akiko is seen sleeping in Watnabe's bed through the frosted glass of the bedroom door; while Akiko and Watnabe exchange their dialog in the confined spaces of Watnabe's apartment or Watnabe's car. Through such techniques Kiarostani shows us how the characters are prisoners both of themselves - and their inability to disclose their feelings - and the urban environment, which confines them both night and day. The denouement is both unexpected and, in terms of the film's thematic preoccupations, quote shocking: by smashing Watnabe's window, Noriaki both literally and figuratively tries to break the prison-like atmosphere. But there is a sad irony here; although we see the window breaking ,we do not see any resolution as far as the characters are concerned. The title, and the Ella Bitzgerald song that is heard regularly on the soundtrack, are likewise ironic: the characters can never fall in love, but they merely act "like someone in love".

Great for the right person.

[GiraffeDoor · 7/10 · 15 October 2019]

This Movie reminds me a lot of "4 months, 3 weeks and 2 days", in its minimalist approach to story telling. It almost isn't a story in the conventional sense; there isn't a clear build up to some resolve, it's more like just a snapshot of someone at a particularly desperate point in their lives with a quiet but rather brutal pathos.

It also reminded me a bit of Anomalisa with its two slightly lost characters finding each other for comfort though here it's more about emotional support.

Cool and leisurely, a lot of it feels just like chat because that's what people are like. I watched this over about four sittings over a period of a few months because it is a movie that really demands that you slow your pace to match its own, but over all I admire the uncompromising, unpretentious tone where there are no easy solutions offered, just the blunt jab of reality delivered without aggression.

An Iranian director in Japan

[Red-125 · 9/10 · 27 September 2013]

Like Someone in Love (2012) is a Japanese movie written and directed by the great Iranian filmmaker Abbas Kiarostami. Kiarostami brings his quiet, thoughtful style to a culture that is surely very alien to him. Japanese viewers may note cultural errors in the movie. My thought is that Kiarostami can look beyond cultural differences to universal themes.

The movie, set in Tokyo, stars Rin Takanashi as Akiko, a young provincial woman who is a call girl. (She doesn't walk the streets. She works out of a bar, whose owner arranges the sessions at people's homes.) As the movie opens Akiko is facing two immediate problems. Her jealous boyfriend is on the phone, demanding to know where she is. Akiko is a college student, and her boyfriend is aware of that. He doesn't know that she's a prostitute, but he can sense that something isn't right, and he suspects her of cheating.

Akiko's grandmother is visiting Tokyo that day, and desperately wants to see Akiko. Akiko would love to meet with her, but the bar owner is adamant--she must go out on a call to an important client. The client is Professor Takashi Watanabe, played by Tadasi Okuno. Akiko has no choice but to ignore her grandmother and visit the professor's apartment.

Prof. Watanabe is a gentle, lonely widower. He has prepared a special dinner for Akiko, and he's playing Western music. (It's Ella Fitzgerald singing "Like Someone in Love.") It's more like a seduction scene than a paid sexual encounter.

Akiko spends the night at the professor's home, and he drives her to the university the next morning. It's at that point that the film takes a different turn, because Akiko's violent boyfriend confronts her on the university steps.

All of this action takes place in the first third of the movie. In the remainder of the film, Kiarostami continues to explore this unusual and somewhat threatening love triangle. This interaction among three very different individuals provides a fascinating look into human relationships. Where these relationships will lead isn't always obvious or predictable.

I enjoyed this intelligent, thought-provoking movie. It will work well on DVD. It's worth seeking out and watching.

Love in modern Tokyo

[Davidon80 · 7/10 · 3 April 2013]

Part time Tokyo call girl finds an unlikely connection with an old retired sociology professor. Whilst living her double life as student and escort girl her relationship with her hot-hedded, blue collar boyfriend reaches boiling point.

Like someone in love, as the title suggest is about the first pangs of love, the period when two people begin the process of understanding the other. In this case it is the old professor who unexpectedly finds himself falling for the young girl. The set up is within the seedier underbelly of Tokyo, yet seedy as the setup may be, there is no overt denouncement of this taboo subject of prostitution or of Japan's social vices. The script and the director uses the setup more to tell a tale of loneliness and discomfort within a sprawling and uncompromising city. The slight romance that is kindled within the older professor is the rapture played out in a fierce and in many ways sad cityscape.

Like Someone in Love is not a movie for all tastes. Each scene is long and laborious, many scenes are of simply the characters waiting for the other to appear on screen. It is definitely not a movie for completists, a good case in point would be the somewhat abrupt nature of the final scene. Ultimately the story is about subtleties and there are many blink and you miss it moments. A good example of this would be Akiko's taxi ride through Tokyo at the beginning of this movie, this scene is absolutely heart breaking and is in many ways the pivotal moment of this movie, yet there is virtually no dialogue spoken by the actors on screen, only a series of phone messages playing over the background noise. The simplicity of this scene twinned with Akiko's reaction is enough to have the stoniest of hearts melting by the time the taxi ride has reached it's destination.

So if you are willing to stay the duration you may be rewarded with a touching if some what incomplete love story, for those who expect a sense of closure you may find Pretty Woman is more up your street.

Beauty is in the subtleties

[oxobabychickxox · 9/10 · 10 March 2013]

Most of what happens in this film is implicit and off screen. The director chooses to focus on a few brief encounters and a newly forged, fragile relationship between a call girl and an esteemed, older Sociology professor who lives 1 hour outside of the city. Though seemingly simple, plot-wise, the brilliance and intricacies come to life in our minds long after the film ends.

The audience isn't provided with a substantial backstory- this is a sliver of time we're exposed to, and we reckon that Akiko is a student who moved to Tokyo and struggled with finances, so she began moonlighting as a call girl after her classes and exams after finding success due to her exceptional, though generic, beauty. She mentions that she often reminds people of others, perhaps her universal familiarity is her allure, allowing her clients to project whatever they want her to be, leaving the real Akiko unfamiliar to everyone including herself- clearly a stranger even to her suspicious (for good reason) and controlling fiancé who we can assume gives the emotionally damaged Akiko some sense of stability in a twisted form of consuming love that she can accept. It's unclear if the relationship was ever good, or if Akiko's compartmentalization and double-life has created the toxic dynamic that exists in the time we're privy to.

Akiko's pimp sends her to a client old enough to be her grandfather. Formerly a student of this aging Sociology professor, her pimp holds him in high esteem. It's apparent that Akiko seems comfortable immediately with the professor, and undresses soon after she arrives and passes out in his bed. He's patient with her despite her refusal to eat dinner with him which he prepared for her, and silently watches over her as she sleeps. The next morning he takes her to school while she continues to sleep. In our sleep we are the most vulnerable, so these scenes show us the immediate comfort the two feel in each others' presence.

While he waits for her, he meets Akiko's fiancé who is also waiting for her. Through masterful and cryptic dialogue, the fiancé assumes the professor is Akiko's grandfather. We see what we want to see, seems to be the message the director is insisting on despite very obvious clues that not all is what it seems (ex. Akiko's fiancé has an advertisement with Akiko's photo on it advertising her services, Akiko never mentioned her grandfather visiting, only her grandmother, and her grandfather is a fisherman, not a professor). The ambiguity of their relationship echoes that of Abbas' film 'Certified Copy', where we're not sure what's real, what's pretend, what's a dream, and who's who.

The abrupt ending literally "shatters" a lot of what we've come to understand in this poetic, soft film. Perhaps making up for the slow beginning and shocking us to our senses, the ending calls into question a much more that happens non diegetically- how did the fiancé find out within the few hours he was denying the truth and now? Is the Professor alright? With so little actually explained in the film, our minds run wild with answers filling in the complex backstories that we personalize.

All we really understand is that the Professor sees Akiko as familiar because she resembles his wife and granddaughter, and though nothing sexual happens (at least on screen) the nature of their relationship from the outset is of sexual expectations. Perhaps this film is really discussing the innocence of what has darker pretenses on the exterior, while also evaluating the darkness that exists within an innocent exterior (Akiko).

A peculiar relationship dissected as subtly as possible

[napierslogs · 6/10 · 4 May 2013]

"Like Someone in Love" is Abbas Kiarostami's follow-up to the mind- bending relationship drama "Certified Copy". Dissection of the title alone provides so many interesting clues and directions for the film to take in addition to what was analyzed previously. And while it does in fact address those interesting ideas (indirectly), it is as minimal as any film-going audience could possibly stand. We essentially watch an unexplained relationship unfold in almost real-time (just under 24 hours).

Akiko (Rin Takashi) is a college-aged girl up to something in the big city of Tokyo that is probably not good for her. She's having an argument with her boyfriend on the phone and she's saying no to a job that a middle-aged man is offering her. This middle-aged man is clearly her pimp and "no" means "yes, sir, I will do whatever you tell me to." So into the cab Akiko goes and we begin to worry about her safety. We spent an awful long time worrying about her safety with no idea what lies ahead for her. The cab ride was two hours long and we saw a lot of it. Akiko arrives at the apartment of an older gentleman looking for companionship. We don't really know what exactly Takashi Watanabe (Tadashi Okuno) wanted with Akiko, and then in the morning he drives her back to Tokyo. Another long car ride.

Visually the car rides were impeccably shot. The scenery was reflected in the windshield and we could still see the characters' faces behind. Unfortunately we don't really know what's happening with these characters during these long car rides. Sometimes a car ride is just a car ride.

Eventually we meet Noriaki (Ryo Kase), Akiko's offensive boyfriend. And he starts putting the relationships into perspective. A different perspective. He allows Akiko and Watanabe to act differently than they actually are, which allows us to start seeing them as they actually are. And then it ends. Well, not quite that quickly, but without giving anything away, it ends.

We're given so little on screen to examine that it can be frustrating even to the viewers that appreciate the subtle beauty in film. Two weeks after first seeing it, my mind has started to form a few opinions on what was being said but it's still a bit too little, too late.

A simple masterpiece

[mkian · 10/10 · 24 April 2013]

I watched this movie on silver screen twice up to now and I'm sure I can check it out ten more times and still enjoy it. It's definitely a minimal piece of art but it's as deep as life. It looks simple but it doesn't mean you can't elaborate. Kiarostami highlights lifelike stories. Stories which belong to us, ordinary people! Aren't they important? And Kiarostami doesn't conceal this fact that he likes Haiku and Japanese culture but he doesn't have any idea how this feelings came up to him. He started writing poems that resembled Haiku when he was just 20! The serene, nonchalant, and often profoundly philosophical language of haiku allows the poet to swiftly touch on the core of the universal human condition: love, despair, humor, death; as his movies do and now Kiarostami made his last movie (and one of the best ones) where Haiku was blossomed: Japan. All these said, I can't ignore the innovative cinematographic techniques he used in "Like Someone in Love" that adds to the beauty of this movie. Remember the first scene in the bar with Camera fixed on a table, the girl is talking in behind while we see other people activities. We don't know what we should track. The other scenes in the car which camera plays with lights and shadows are just magnificent. I'm really amazed how delicately he sets up these all. Every detail is deliberated. Briefly, if you are bored of the stupid stories we see in the movies nowadays and instead want to know what's behind go and check this out.

Circling twice without stopping

[chaos-rampant · 5 January 2014]

Kiarostami in Japan, what bliss and promise! I'm always interested when foreign filmmakers film in Japan, how that worldview illuminates them. Chris Marker captured the most evocative coming and going of things in Sans Soleil, on the flipside for me is Wenders who completely misses Zen in his film about Ozu, mistaking emptiness for modern lack. Coppola's is merely passable for my taste.

But Kiarostami is not merely drawn to images, his whole world conveys a Persian Zen of sorts—his Wind was the most clear, all about finding meaning in things and their cyclical drift being what they are. Certified Copy added more story, but the fact remained of his being the most essentially Buddhist filmmaker in the West since Antonioni, drawing up the same realizations about self and time.

So what does he find here, what illumination?

There are three main implications woven together, all derived from a Buddhist view; the transience of things, with people coming and going at the bar before the girl, the taxi drive with Tokyo nightlife fleeing past, circling around the grandmother but driving on without stopping; illusory self, we are not sure at first who the girl or the old man are, no fixed roles but two people in each other's company, the resemblance to the girls in the painting and photograph, the old man posing as the grandfather later in the car and her flyer that comes up, all pointing to the fluidity of self; ignorance born from desire in the fiancé with his phonecalls and later showing up on the door.

Kiarostami captures the essence of Buddhism, not interpreting themes but unearthing the visual flow from ordinary life. He films the air of anticipation, the cautious exchange. True to Japan, he films the drama with no needless suffering, as awareness, with that faint melancholy they know over there as mono no aware, which comes from a notion of time where things are not inevitable as we understand in the West when we talk about fate, nor could they be anything else than what's before the eyes.

What will be will be, says the old man who poses as the grandfather to both protect the girl and conceal his misdeed. We have this wonderful ambiguity all through the thing. There is no problem of evil see in Buddhism and Kiarostami's cinema alike. No moral blame in that the girl does what she does to go through college and ignores her grandma, or that the old man desired the company of someone like her that night or even that he lies about being the grandfather.

But when what will be is finally at hand and the old man looks confused and foolish as he faces a beating, what's the good of all the philosophizing then? But that's when Kiarostami abandons the story, probably thinking he has evoked enough and we should mull over the rest.

I consider this a real miss, a poor ending. We don't need any concrete answer of course. It's just that ending it at that point in the story, with the karmic noise but not the echo back into life, we forget all about the girl, the sweet fragile self who is not the dolled-up face in the flyer, we forget about the waiting grandmother, it's all cleaved away from the film.

Don't be fooled. It's not that good.

[rgcustomer · 6/10 · 15 May 2013]

This is a film that shows a night and day in the life of one particular Japanese call girl and her customer. (But to be clear, there are no sexual situations.)

As some of the other reviewers have noted, there is a wonderful immersion into the moments of the characters in this film, with each act seemingly shown in real time. I compare this aspect of it to things like Elephant (2003) or Bir zamanlar Anadolu'da (2011) (Once Upon a Time in Anatolia), both superior films that made this approach work.

That is why I am disappointed that this film wasn't actually any good. There's a worthwhile film here, if only they'd filmed it.

At the end of the film, reasonable audiences reasonably expect an ending. There is no end to this film. The filmmakers simply ran out of ... what? script? cash? patience? ideas? ... and simply started the end credits. If this was Lord of the Rings, I'd know to expect the next third of the story in the sequel. But it's not.

The end is one of those moments in film when you realize the writer-director is telling audiences to f--- off, just to see who tolerates it. From the looks of it, quite a few did.

Intriguing from start, but tediously slow and ultimately disappointing

[DopeAsDaPope · 3/10 · 27 June 2021]

This is a film that from the get-go grabs your interest. It has a unique story, a stylish look and some saddening, emotional moments from it's very beginning that really get you invested in it. A student with a working-class and jealous fiance jilts both him and her concerned family to work secretly as a call girl with her best friend Nagisa. An elderly widower who hires her to talk to him eventually befriends her and becomes more and more involved in her life.

There's so much potential here and as I said, it really hooks you from the get-go in every way. Unfortunately, I felt like I enjoyed parts of this film despite Abbas Kiarostami's direction, rather than because of it. The plot is intriguing (if a bit underdeveloped), the characters and their dynamics are really interesting and the acting is well done all-around. Pretty colours, interesting cinematography too. But jesus, the director really manages to test your patience and turn all of these elements from the genre of dramatic film into the one of tedium and high-level boredom.

I'm sure many would call me uncultured for this, but I really don't see what a five-minute shot of an old man sleeping in his car adds to anything, other than the running time. It's infuriating, because you start to care about the characters and the story and then gradually your thoughts turn to contemplating fast-forwarding or turning the whole damn thing off. Stupid, pointless scenes such as a man realising he's parked on the street so he has to turn his car all the way around. No cutting - of course not - because this director considers himself an 'artisté' and has to show you the entire motion of a guy parking, unparking and driving in a circle in order to park his car someplace else. But hey, maybe it's a metaphor. I'll be sure to call my old English Lit teacher and ask them for the deeper meaning. In the meantime, I was bored to death.

I was going to say that ultimately, the one thing this film did was show me that you can actually enjoy a film even when it frustrates you persistently throughout. But with the way it ends - abruptly, very rushed and without any kind of deep meaning or interesting takes or anything at all, and taking so long to get there - I couldn't even say that.

The most frustrating thing is that if you cut out all the unnecessary chaff, you could have filled the gaps in this film and made it a truly great movie. Develop the main characters a bit more, follow through their quarrels and moral conundrums, give us something to think about instead of pushing ideas into frame and then fading them back out undeveloped, never to be seen again. Unfortunately, this film is instead full of gratuitous scenes only the director himself and armchair cinephiles could really enjoy. A shame, and a real waste from what could have been.

I really wanted to like this one. But I couldn't.

Not Exactly What Ella Fitzgerald Had In Mind

[georgep53 · 8/10 · 19 March 2013]

Director Abbas Kiarostami has followed up his wonderful "Certified Copy" with this thoughtful drama involving a call girl, her volatile boyfriend and a retired professor. Akiko (Rin Takanashi)is a young,beautiful university student who moonlights as a call girl. One night she is driven to the home of Takashi (Tadashi Okuno) an educator who now works as a translator. No typical client, Takashi simply wants to talk and get to know Akiko. Her relationship with a boyfriend, a small auto shop owner named Noriaki (Ryo Kase), is spiraling out of control. His possessive, jealous rages are becoming more menacing.

Kiarostami also wrote the screenplay which seems completely authentic to time, place and character. It's remarkable the way he makes even the most mundane conversations seem important and revealing. Filmed with minimal editing "Like Someone In Love" with its many long takes makes you feel as if you're watching life as it's happening. The performances are exemplary. Rin Takanashi brings an almost childlike innocence to the role of Akiko. She's largely a pawn to the men in her life who pull her one way or another depending on their needs. Ryo Kase is a powder keg. A psychopathic personality he mistakes his obsessiveness for love. There's an underlying sadness and loneliness to Tadashi Okuno's character. Like other characters in the film he is searching for someone perhaps to love or something like it. "Like Someone In Love" is an odd and poignant film that centers around the randomness of human relationships and their unintended consequences.

A day in the life of Akiko of Tokyo

[jkbonner1 · 6/10 · 26 February 2013]

We first meet Akiko, a young woman from the provinces, in a Tokyo bar where the proprietor recruits young women to "satisfy" male customers and clients. It's clear she doesn't like the work much and grumbles when the proprietor tells her to go to an old and well respected client. She doesn't want to go but finally agrees. It's hinted she has financial problems with her bank. Her granny from the village has come to Tokyo for the day and wants to get together with her. Little does she know.

The old and well respected client turns out to be a retired professor of sociology who still conducts research in his field. All he wants to do is chat with Akiko over dinner and feed her the broth with small shrimp he's prepared. It's a delicacy of the village where she comes from. Turns out she hates it. She's exhausted from study and just wants to sleep. The prof doesn't disturb her. It's not clear if he does this kind of thing regularly with young women or if it's just a one-time shot.

When Akiko awakens, the prof drives her to the university (Tokyo University I guess) she's attending. As she's going up the steps, she meets, and argues with, a young man who's clearly waiting for her. The prof sees all this from his car. Akiko enters the building. The young man approaches the prob for a light for his cigarette and pretty soon he's invited into the car. Turns out he's Akiko's fiancé. He's a mechanic and can't wait to marry her. The prof warns him about getting married too young. Young man doesn't hear a word of it. He thinks the prof is Akiko's grandfather. The prof enigmatically tells the young man that he could just as well be the young man's grandfather as Akiko's.

The young man determines the prof's Volvo needs a new drive belt. The car gets fixed in the young man's shop. The young man also hints that he suspects Akiko's hooking. In the shop one of the prof's former student's having his car fixed and tells the prof how much he learned from him.

The prof drives back to his flat. He receives a panic call from Akiko, abruptly leaving off telling a man on the phone what changes need to be made to his manuscript, and jumps into his car. He finds Akiko in tears in an alley. Argument with boy friend/fiancé. He's found out she's hooking. The prof takes her back to his flat. Boyfriend/fiancé determines where the prof lives. Although we don't see him, he stands on the street outside of the prof's flat shouting at the top of his lungs for Akiko to come out. She doesn't. He lobs a rock at the window, shattering it. End.

We don't know the characters well enough to feel much for them. There is little drama. Less action. Akiko isn't ready for marriage. Probably met the young man through loneliness and went on a few dates with him. Who knows? The fiancé already wants control over her life even before they're married. Where does all of this go? Your guess is as good as mine. I'm probably missing something deep and significant but I don't know what it is. The angst of youth? Making it in the big city is tough on a young girl short on bucks? The film suggests it's either hooking or marrying for her. Rin Takanashi is certainly very nice eye-candy and does a credible job as the confused, and confusing, Akiko. Good try but doesn't make it.

6/10

Pretentious reviews

[mc12000 · 1/10 · 18 May 2013]

To this day I still do not understand why there are people (most probably "Asianophilic" Caucasians) who try to give meaning to a a Asian film which, for all intents and purposes, just does not have any deep meaningful messages to impart. Because if this was an American or English film, it would have been slated as boring and a waste of time. But just because it is Japanese, there are people who are automatically impressed and seek to find hidden and meaningful truth in something which is actually as empty as the abyss....

One reviewer was asking how the fiancé found out the truth in a matter of hours. The answer is, it was not a matter of hours because we already knew that Akiko was meeting him for lunch. And that is presumably how she got her cut, and also how the fiancé knew the old man's address (i.e. he followed them). Funny how the reviewer did not ask why the old man did not call the police.... maybe a hidden meaning somewhere? In any case, I found nothing likable in any of the characters but the one I hated the most was the lead character. Someone who can willingly ignore her Grandmother for the entire day deserves no pity and the fact that she could have met her at the train station (but did not) made me detest her all the more.

Very Underrated

[donreplies · 9/10 · 26 April 2014]

This is one of the very few good films I have watched in a while. This film is criticised for being simple, but Kiarostami's craft is almost flawless and very realistic. There are times when I questioned the duration of real-time in the film as he opt not to use jump cuts to show the shift in time, but except that minor glitch, this film was highly tense, deep and meaningful at so many levels.

Unlike the superficial Hollywood garbage we get to see everyday, Kiarostami's films show us real people with real problems. Probably one of the very few directors who can claim to have real class in this present era. I started watching this film after reading an interview with the director. The film did not disappoint me even a little bit. I am ashamed that I did not come across his name before.

Like Someone in Love easily could be seen as a very confusing film, if you forget what the film's title is.

[Amari-Sali · 7/10 · 30 September 2013]

Every now and then I search IMDb's list of movies to find something to watch when I feel like I have seen everything I could have wished to watch. But, I stumbled across this movie, saw the trailer, and gave it a shot. It had a sort of Lost in Translation vibe to it, so I gave it a chance.

Like Someone In Love focuses on three main characters. The first being Akiko (played by Rin Takanashi), who is a college student who does escort work; Noriaki (played by Ryo Kase) who is jealous man-boy who vies for Akiko's affections; and then Takashi Watanabe (played by Tadashi Okuno) who is an old man who asks for Akiko's company from her boss/ pimp Hiroshi (played by Denden).

The story for the film deals with Akiko's life as an escort. At first though, you think it is simply about this young girl dealing with a jealous boyfriend, but as the movie goes on, we realize that Hiroshi, a sort of pimp, is perhaps forcing Akiko into her current profession. But, unlike Akiko's friend Nagisa (played by Reiko Mori) who seemingly is given to whoever, Akiko is special. Because of this she seemingly has some leeway, but ultimately she belongs to Hiroshi who sends her to be with his former professor Takashi. Upon meeting him, we assume the worst e.g., the pervy old Japanese man who probably buys underwear from vending machines. Luckily though, he seems to be more so the type of old man which wishes for some company and conversation, rather than sex with a 20-something year old. After meeting, he takes on the role of pretending to be her grandfather, thanks to various characters having said assumption. But then, we meet Noriaki, the would-be jealous boyfriend, and with him you realize, as well as when you reflect on the film, why the title of the film is Like Someone In Love.

Now, the film itself is very strange. The reason for this is because you aren't ever really sure where it is going. Akiko appears and as you get comfortable with her, you think the worst. However, until we meet Noriaki, the film seems very light and sort of sweet. The reason I say this is because Takashi, after you realize he isn't a perv, you realize is just a sweet old man who wants some company. His wife is gone, daughter is who knows where, and all he has is books and no real human company. So it makes his moments with Akiko sweet, until she decides to try to flirt with him. Another thing I liked was Noriaki's character, to a point. To be honest, while I find his patriarchy point of view problematic, you had to give it to the actor portraying him. Very much so, the bit he is able to do within the movie made me think of Laurence Fishburn as Ike Turner in What's Love Got To Do With It. But, instead of charm, he gave us genuine vulnerability which is why I called him a man- boy in the character introductions. You can see he really does have feelings for Akiko, but he has feelings for the idea of her, and because he can't advance to really get to know her, he is unable to deal with his frustrations so he lashes out.

With all that said though, if you just watch the movie and don't really analyze it, you wonder what was the point of the movie? Before writing this review, I didn't get this movie at all. However, after going to the IMDb boards and checking some comments, only then you understand what this movie is trying to portray. Before that though, I was wondering what were we necessarily supposed to get out of Akiko's adventures with this lonely old man? Was he supposed to play faux-grandpa long enough to save her? Make up for her ditching her grandma because she was forced to work? And what of Noriaki? The boy has issues and we aren't fully sure how in the world those two came together. Was he someone she knew before her profession or during? Much less, the ending is so abrupt that it makes the film feel slightly incomplete.

Overall: Worth Viewing, but No Rush

As a film, I would say off the bat I wouldn't physically go to the movies or really go out of my way to see this. But, I must admit that I grew to appreciate it once I fully understood the intentions of the movie, and began to appreciate the character portrayals. With that said though, I feel if I need to put a disclaimer or search about to get a movie, perhaps it isn't worth really recommending. So, while it isn't a bad movie, even after it being broken down, it doesn't really stand out in any way to make it worth recommending.

Essential viewing

[MOscarbradley · 10/10 · 4 December 2014]

The great Iranian director Abbas Kiarostami made "Like Someone In Love" in Japan but it could have been set anywhere for this is a film that knows no boundaries or borders. As you would expect from Kiarostami it's brilliantly written and directed and beautifully played, particularly by Tadashi Okuno as an old professor whose loneliness draws him to a young student supplementing her income by working as an escort. He's not looking for sex, just conversation and company and when, the next day, they run into her jealous boyfriend the old man allows himself to be mistaken for her grandfather ... and then the boy finds out the truth.

It's a film of mostly small dramas and when violence finally erupts Kiarostami keeps it off screen. For the most part these people simply talk, about their problems, their relationships and life itself and Kiarostami films sequences in 'real time' and with a fixed camera just as he does in his Iranian films. I found it mesmerizing, at times funny, sometimes moving and in the end, really rather shocking. It makes for essential viewing.

Like Someone in Love

[politic1983 · 6/10 · 25 June 2013]

Crossing cultures and language barriers is something happening more and more in cinema, with well-known directors establishing their name for making films from their homeland, looking abroad to try out their skills in a different culture. With 'Like Someone to Love', Iranian director Abbas Kiarostami heads to Japan to work with a Japanese cast and crew to look at the concept of love from various different angles and perspectives.

Akiko, a young student working as a prostitute, ignores both her grandmother and fiancé to let herself be talked into working the night before an exam. But her client, an aging academic, seems more to simply want an evening's company than full sex with a woman. Seeing her off to her exam the next morning, both Akiko and her client, Takashi, are left to deal with the consequences of her deceit.

'Like Someone in Love' is a film that is lacking in many respects, but indulgent in others. Various plot holes leave the audience having to make their own deductions as to how things developed, rather than making it clear on watching. Time that could have been spent on this is instead spent on lengthy shots with little actual action. The first two scenes consist of one half of an extended phone conversation, followed by a close up of Akiko in the back of a taxi listening to all seven of her voicemail messages. With this the case, the audience can be forgiven for thinking that the next two hours will be excruciatingly long.

The film, despite lacking in plot, is more an analysis of the different relationships Akiko has with the people in her life: her dutiful grandmother, whom she ignores; her prone-to-aggression fiancé, Noriaki, whom she deceives; and her client, the aging Takashi, whom she turns to in crisis.

The most likable of the three main characters is Takashi, whose bumbling around Akiko provide some humour and his earnest assistance to her show him to simply be a kind man that is lonely. His discussion with Noriaki is perhaps the film's most important, indicating that neither Noriaki and Akiko are ready for marriage.

But while humour and wisdom come from Takashi in parts, other flaws lead 'Like Someone to Love' to miss as much as it hits. While the question is asked as to what Akiko sees in Noriaki, the question could also be asked with the roles reversed, with the only good relationship Akiko appearing to have one with someone she has known less than 24 hours, making her less of an appealing character than required in the lead; coming across more as a spoiled brat than abused victim. The sudden development in Noriaki's anger requires assumptions to be made rather than good storytelling.

The intentional sudden and abrupt ending shows the problems that misguided love has brought the trio to, and in that sense the film works in getting its point across. Though one could argue that Kiarostami takes too long to get there. Having made many shorts in the past, perhaps 'Like Someone to Love' would have been better made in a much shorter format, with the idea good, but the execution, like the film's characters, somewhat misguided and indulgent.

Spatiotemporal Structure of Like Someone in Love

[fsevdecoskun · 9/10 · 11 November 2019]

The very initial scene in Like Someone in Love begins with a voice off. We know that this is a way of expansion of the space. When it comes to Kiarostami, it also has a philosophical approach to the process of making a meaning out of something. In case of a voice off where we hear the speaker and see the listener, especially when two people are having a conversation, our attention is drawn to the listener. The listener, then, is the subject of the scene. S/he is the meaning maker. We read the scene through his/her reaction, a change on his/her face. The philosophical approach arises here. The director implies that the person who receives the information and processes it in the background of his/her own thoughts is the actual meaning maker. Not what is said is important but how it is perceived is what matters. At the end of the first scene, we see the images of Akiko and her boss juxtaposed to each other. At this moment, when the speaker and the listener come together, what is said is properly perceived and makes sense, so that Akiko decides to visit her customer, I think. This is that a-ha moment which is constructed by the contribution of both parties and intensified by such a juxtaposition.

On the other hand, the timing of the first scene is very linear. We realize that the timing of this scene is so-scaled to our daily life timing from the very initial. We literally wait for Akiko's return when she goes to the bathroom as if we are a guest in that bar waiting for her, which is not very conventional in mainstream movies, but frequent in Kiarostami's movies.

In the taxi while Akiko is going to the house of her customer, she listens to her voice messages from her grandmother. We never see the grandmother, yet we are aware of her presence from the conversation between Akiko and her boss even from very beginning. Here, she is being visible while invisible in a manner. Why do we have to hear her in the taxi, then? We know that she exists and the story that she wants to visit her granddaughter while she's in Tokyo, so why more of a proof? What I think is that the director is interfering here and now he is being visible while invisible. We know that this is the director's touch, so that here he is, as well. The space is expanded in two layers in the taxi scene. In one layer, Akiko is above the taxi driver with her being aware of the grandmother's complaints. In the other layer, we are above both of them. Linearity of the timing, however, is disrupted in the taxi through the voice messages that take us from the taxi to the earlier hours of the day.

There is one thing that is interesting here, though. The first 3 voice messages are from the grandmother. We perceive them through the face of Akiko. We are expected to observe her while she receives these messages. However, the voice messages of the grandmother are interrupted by two other messages that were sent by some irrelevant people. While she is listening to those messages, the camera turns its attention to the street and we no longer perceive the messages through the face of Akiko. That is why I consider those interruptions to be irrelevant and I think this is the touch of the director again where he is being visible through an invisible interference. From the last message till the other day, the linearity of the time is restored. We see all those turns on the road, waits on the red light, the other cars in the traffic and we hear the turn signal, the radio, so that we're restored to the reality of that moment. From now on, we wait for that slow process of Akiko's putting on her make up. The necessity that the driver had to call the customer to ask the address could not be skipped, even though this was an attempt in vain. That phone call from the friend of the customer had to be received. These are all the supporters of the linearity of the time anymore. The phone call, in addition to its contribution to perception of the time, being originated from a different location, is another example that disrupts the perception of the space for the audience.

The juxtaposition that we saw in the first scene is also repeated in the meeting scene of Akiko and her customer. The scene begins with a conversation where the audience interprets the flow of the dialog through the face of the listener and it ends with juxtaposition of the speaker and the listener on a different texture this time, through the screen. Here acting as a mirror, the screen allows the audience to physically expand the space. This scene is followed by the car scene where we see the characters from out of the front window of the car. Now, the director is compressing the space with this shooting technique, trapping the characters inside the car. The compression of the inside of the car is even more exaggerated by the shadows of the clouds and the outside world. As the clouds are large and the shadow of everything out of that small car is imposed on them, the characters are even more trapped in the car. It could be a sunny day with no clouds or no reflection. But would we have the same feeling of being contained in a squeezed space, then? I believe Kiarostami has an intended touch here, too making himself visible again. Another example that gives the sense of real-time timing is when the boyfriend and the customer are having a conversation in the car. Initially, we wait for the boyfriend to finish smoking, and we experience the hesitation that he goes through during that time, not skipped, a good detail. Then, a long conversation begins. This scene is very typical of Kiarostami who is known for making sophisticated conversations taking place in a car. While reading Kiarostami, we should always consider the audience since he believes that the final decision about his films is made on the minds of the spectator. In this car scene, the spectator is taken into the car being included to that trapped space. S/he is not a spectator anymore, but is a moderator of an argument. S/he is forced to perceive the argument, digest it, and not allowed to remain distant. This inevitable attraction towards the conversation is achieved through the shooting preferences of the director who placed the camera hence the spectator into the car. When Akiko returns after her exam is finished, the argument ends hence the moderator is kicked out of the car, also the camera, and becomes the spectator again. Until the end of that scene, whose remaining is not that philosophically sophisticated anymore, the spectator stays on the out of the car. Eventually, when they reach to the car service, the argument begins again, so that we are taken back into the car. In the following scene when the customer arrives home, there is a voice off which is not only used as a means of expansion of the space, but also used as a way of incorporating the audience. We do not see the owner of the voice in this scene, yet the customer answers her directly looking at the camera. Therefore, in a way, the spectator becomes the owner of the voice as if the customer was answering our questions. We are the owner of the voice with a cost of being put in a disturbing position since the neighbor's questions annoy the customer. Eventually, we feel distant from the neighbor even though we are her. In the consecutive scene, however, the audience is alienated from the scene, though having more empathy for the neighbor. Now, we see the actual owner of the voice, who is allowed to be seen from the behind a small window telling the story of her handicapping life. How she has to be attached to her brother is intensified by how she is attached to that window, how she is an object with which the main story has barrier in between. Now, she is trapped in that house, in her life which we perceive as a spectator observing her out of the window. We are now alienated from her, yet we feel more empathy towards her. Such spatial arrangement through a shooting technique allows the audience to have more intuition about even a random character and his/her own position as an audience. In Like Someone in Love, the space is expanded or compressed as the scene demands using different shooting techniques. The time is constructed in a linear manner in general. However, this linearity is sometimes disrupted by phone calls or voice messages. The spatial and temporal structure of Like Someone in Love is a complex one with layers and layers most of which might not be even covered in this analysis.

Beautifully produced but felt underdeveloped

[madventuring · 6/10 · 2 May 2014]

It felt strange that the opening and closing scenes of this film were the most dramatic but it felt mostly like a lot of potential gone to waste. What really made this film bearable was its photography and atmosphere which, although being fantastically produced, directed and shot, felt like I was observing a canvas rather than the painting itself. This isn't to say I didn't enjoy the film, the characters seemed interesting and the dialogue didn't seem forced or used as a way to fill up the hour and forty-five minutes that the film ran but instead it was done to infuse atmosphere and felt very natural. It was immersive in the use of music (which I am lead to understand is a trademark of Kiarostami's) and it all seemed very real - which may be its own downfall.

I think a 6 is fair. I wasn't blown away by this.

Annoying and slow

[rubenm · 3/10 · 19 August 2013]

I had never before seen a film by Abbas Kiarostami. But he is an esteemed film maker, having won a Palme d'Or in Cannes, and Iranian directors have quite a reputation, so I thought I could enjoy this movie.

How wrong I was. The most appropriate word to describe this film is annoying. It consists of extremely long shots with a static camera, confusing dialogue, and distracting side stories that don't serve any purpose. I have nothing against slow movies, in fact sometimes I like them a lot. But in this movie, the director seems to make all possible efforts to make everything as least attractive as possible. The audience has to endure slow conversations about whether the lead character resembles someone on a painting, or about the crush a woman has had all her life on an aging neighbour. That would be tolerable if it served any purpose, if it added something to the story or the mood of the film. But it doesn't.

The camera registers a day in the life of Akiko, a student who secretly works as a call girl. She ignores her grandmother who calls her to have lunch during her visit to Tokyo, but instead visits a bar and takes a taxi to visit a client, although she is supposed to prepare her exams. By pure coincidence, the client meets her boyfriend, who doesn't know about her work, and her secret life is exposed. All this in a few excruciatingly long and slow scenes.

Of course, there are people who argue that this kind of film deliberately denies the rules of mainstream movie making. It's different, and we're not used to that. Why does everything have to serve a purpose? Why can't things just happen because they do? Just like in real life? And why are we annoyed when these things are filmed with a motionless camera, instead of with fast edited, slick camera movements?

True. It can be quite refreshing to see directors moving away from what movies are supposed to look like. But in this case, it felt too much like showing off. By trying to do his own thing, Kiarostami neglects the needs of the audience. The best thing about this movie is the Ella Fitzgerald song it's named after, which is featured on the soundtrack.

A few hours in the life of Akiko

[Tweekums · 8/10 · 13 August 2014]

Akiko works as a call girl in Tokyo; we first meet her in a bar where she is on the phone to her boyfriend. He clearly doesn't trust her as he keeps asking her questions and refuses to believe that she is just with a girlfriend. When she hangs up she returns to talking with a man; he has arranged for her to spend the night with somebody 'important'… she isn't keen to go as she wants to see her grandmother and she has an exam in the morning. Eventually she gives in to the pressure and is driven to the man's house. It turns out he is an elderly retired professor who is more interested in having dinner with her than sleeping with her. The next morning he drives her to university and sees her boyfriend confront her, the boyfriend then approaches the car and, assuming the old man is Akiko's grandfather gets in and talks about his desire to marry Akiko. An awkward situation is averted but later when he learns the old man isn't Akiko's grandfather he gets violent.

If you want films to be fast paced them this isn't going to be for you; to say the pace is gentle is an understatement! Director Abbas Kiarostami shows things that don't normally appear in films; the elderly man doses off at traffic lights; this is not a hint that he will cause an accident just an old man feeling tired. Similarly the camera doesn't always show the people we expect it to; we don't see the old man's neighbour as she asks him to move his car and when there is some action it is off screen. Some may find these techniques boring or even pretentious but I found it interesting in the way that it drew me into the story; these felt like real people who one just happens to be watching for a short while. The ending will be a problem for some viewers as well; it certainly came as a shock to me; just as it looks as if something is going to happen it ends so don't expect any resolution. The cast perform well; Rin Takanashi brings a vulnerability to the role of Akiko, Tadashi Okuno is good as Takashi, the old man, and Ryo Kase somehow manages to be threatening but not totally unsympathetic as Akiko's boyfriend Noriaki. Overall I'd recommend this to anybody looking for something a little different.

These comments are based on watching the film in Japanese with English subtitles.

Well Paced Enough The Running Time Flies By.

[GeorgeRoots · 6/10 · 12 August 2014]

Iranian filmmaker Abbas Kiarostami, has crafted something I can only define as "patient", as some scenes get drawn out considerably and all in silence no less. However, there are three dialogue driven moments throughout the movie, that really engage and offer fresh perspective on their subject matter.

A young woman moonlights as a prostitute, and one night is assigned to an old University professor who is more interested in making her dinner rather than sex. Throughout the next day, he unwittingly becomes more entangled in the girls life by meeting her erratic boyfriend and tries to defuse the tension between all of them. By the end of that day, she arrives back on his door bruised and he takes her in. Ultimately the boyfriend shows up, resulting in a "conflict" with a very abrupt ending.

For as lovely as some of the dialogue is and how well acted some scenes are, there is something here severely lacking that stops me from rating the movie higher. It's very well shot, and has a melancholic charm that could benefit from just a little more music input.

Final Verdict: Kiarostami is to be commended for such a feat. Hopefully we hear more from this director, and a little more polish to draw us in further next time. 6.5/10.

Long Drawn out Scenes that Surmount to Nothing

[marakanis · 3/10 · 13 April 2014]

Though the characters within the movie are quite lifelike, the story that is ultimately told is uninteresting at best.

The movie is entirely filled with long overly drawn out scenes where very little of interest is said, and absolutely nothing is done. All of the action takes place outside of frame, and while I appreciate the tension it creates, and the authenticity it brings, the movie itself ends up feeling empty and ultimately boring.

I could work myself into a tizzy attempting to draw meaning from the story, but it really seems to be a case of simply letting events from a premise play out on screen. I got a similar feeling from "Lost in Translation," but even that movie had a lot more action and emotional depth to it.

If you liked "Lost in Translation" you may find something to enjoy here, but if your eyes glaze over at the thought of staring at an old man driving a car for 20 minutes, it's fair to say you'd find this movie a waste of your time.

Love it or hate it

[fstewart48 · 9/10 · 11 June 2013]

Well this seems to be the ultimate 'Marmite' movie, that is, you will either love it or hate it. Personally, I loved it - but then I am willing to invest time and patience in a very languorous, slow-moving movie when it's done in the right way.

A previous reviewer mentioned that he thought that 'Once Upon a Time in Anatolia' was more successful in its use of the slow burn. I felt myself that once that excellent movie moved back to the city it lost that mystical intrigue and bordered on the ponderous.

If I have any criticism of 'Like Someone in Love' it is that I wanted it to go on longer! Most people have mentioned that the abrupt ending comes so unexpectedly and so swiftly that it feels to some like they've been cheated. I can understand that point of view as you want to know how things pan out (and you DON'T) but I don't think Kiarostami is interested in narrative structure in the way that Hollywood would insist upon. His interest lies in identity and concealment and how our behaviour and persona are affected by our relationships with others. And there are not many countries where the real self is more consistently hidden beneath a veneer than Japan.

All in all, I was mesmerised, (partly due to the physical beauty of Rin Takanashi and the fragility of her character. The phone message sequence in the taxi is absolutely heartbreaking.) The look of the film had me transfixed also; the reflections on glass windows and the deliberate physical compartmentalisation of the characters was such a vital part of the film's meaning and was also aesthetically beautiful.

I can't wait to see it again but I know others may feel differently.