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Like Someone in Love Opens March 15
Like Someone in Love is a new Japanese language film from Iranian filmmaker Abbas Kiarostami (Certified Copy and Taste of Cherry).
It’s an interesting look a human nature—and the consequences of avoiding choices—regardless of culture, with an ending that’s sure to surprise.
The movie revolves around a brief encounter between an elderly, retired professor, played by 81-year-old actor Tadashi Okuno, and an attractive sociology student (Rin Takanashi) who moonlights as a call girl.
The professor turns out to be less interested in sex than playing Ella Fitzgerald records (such as the song that gives the movie its title). He’s more interested in cooking her dinner and enjoying conversation.
What she is interested in is more difficult to determine. Full of regrets for roads not taken, and choices not made or avoided, she moves from one uncomfortable situation she doesn’t want to be in to the next uncomfortable situation.
The professor and student meet her too-possessive boyfriend after their “encounter,” which gives all of them more even opportunities to misunderstand (or lie) about who is related to whom and how.
Along the way, all of the characters have their moments when they act almost like someone in love, but not quite.
Eventually, the illusion that the old professor and young lady can avoid these uncomfortable situations with lies or simply running away is shattered in the film’s surprise ending.
Surprising at first, but give it a few moments—it fits.
Filmed in Japan, the new 109-minute film (fully subtitled) opens at Landmark’s Ken Cinema in Hillcrest on Friday, March 15.
More at ifcfilms.com/films/like-someone-in-love