Air Doll

B

Directed by Koreeda Hirakazu
Koreeda Hirokazu's "Air Doll" turns a potentially raunchy premise into an interesting rumination on loneliness that nonetheless lacks the depth of his previous work. The presence of the wonderful Bae Doona makes the film a more than worthwhile time investment, however.

Bae plays an air doll named Nozomi who is owned by a lonely fast food employee who used her as a substitute for a proper girlfriend. He bathes her, easts with her, takes her out to the park, and of course sleep siwht her as well, as shown to us in amusing and, at times, uncomfortable detail. Unbeknownst to her owner, however, Nozomi has developed a heart, as well as an ability to turn human, and has set about discovering the city in his absence.

I had very, very high hopes for "Air Doll" but to be frank, I left disappointed. Being disappointed by a film is not always a bad thing, however, because it's evidence that we at least expected something good in the first place. I don't think too many people are "disappointed" by Uwe Boll's films, for instance. In the case of "Air Doll", however, plenty pointed to this movie being great, not least he fact that director Koreeda Hirokazu is responsible for some of the best Japanese films of the best several decades including "Maborosi", "Nobody Knows", and "After life". Any fan of Japanese cinema should properly revere those three films as msterpieces and I'm sure I wasn't the only one to expect "Air Doll" to measure up to his past work. The presence of Bae Doona as the lead actress was also a tantilizing prospect since Bae has slowly carved out a niche for herself as a darling of the festival masses due to her performances in such sleeper hits as "Take Care of my Cat" and "Linda, Linda, Linda", not to mention mega-hit "The Host". The combination of Hirokazu and Bae doesn't exactly fall flat but the result isn't as amazing as I had hoped either. My expectations were probably unreasanly high but as I said, there was nothing to prevent me from having sky high hopes for "Air Doll" so I threw caution to the wind and expected to be blown away. I wasn't, unfortunately, and I think the main problem for me was Hirokazu's frustratingly languid script which took ample detours but never really seem focused ons torytelling. Hirokazu's previous work, though slow of pace and sparing in dialogue, has always been extremely focused on telling its central story and not only on exploring larger ideas, even if the larger issues of memory and loss are always present in his work. In "Air Doll" the story seems to take a back seat to ruminations on loneliness that, although not without some profundity, tend to drag along without much direction. As such, Bae's presence in this movie is a godsend since her performance elevates "Air Doll" from ho-hum to at the very least engaging even though it falls well short of Hirokazu's earlier efforts.