Lost Girls and Love Hotels

A bleak and rather depressing film for the majority of the screen time, but the movie suffers from the lack of substance and convenient encounters to drive the story forward.

The problem I have for these type of films is it often do succeed in showing how low the human condition can reach, but there's no major theme or message after the fact. We see a woman spiraling down mentally and physically but other than showing it, the movie never goes deeper.

I guess it's kind of a cautionary tale. It's letting you know the obvious: humans are driven by goals, meaning, and a sense of belonging. If you have none of those, you might find yourself in the protagonist's shoes; desperately trying to find a connection and meaning, but mixing with the wrong crowd and habits.

Unfortunately, the conclusion leaves a lot to be desired and the movie as a whole feels like a missed opportunity.

Greetings again from the darkness. The temptation here is to compare director William Olsson's latest film to FIFTY SHADES OF GREY. While the two films do share the foundation of best-selling adult erotica novels, this film is darker and grittier, and doesn't treat the lead as a cartoon character. Catherine Hanrahan wrote both the novel and the screenplay, a likely contributing factor to the more grounded feel to the setting and characters.

Alexandra Daddario stars as Margaret, a young woman living on her own in Tokyo. She works days as an English "pronunciation" teacher at a Flight Attendant Academy. In the evening she imbibes at a local dive bar with other ex-pats (Carice van Houten, Andrew Rothney) before heading out under the neon lights in search of that night's partner at one of the "love hotels". Margaret is burning the candle at both ends to an extreme. Her alcohol intake would put most sailors to shame. Is Margaret looking for the meaning of life or just trying to forget? That's the question we spend most of the story trying to answer.

One day Margaret meets Kazu (played by Takehiro Hira), a dashing Yakuza (organized crime) member. She quickly falls under his spell, and the two have a lustful, fast-moving connection. Of course, traditions being what they are, the relationship can never be the same for Kazu as it is for Margaret. In other words, she finally found love, but with the wrong guy. Margaret as narrator offers up wisdom such as, "I tell myself there are no happy endings." "Things are ragged and messy." These sentiments perfectly describe her life.

Margaret is challenging to figure out. We feel her pain and confusion and desperation, though we never fully understand what's driving it. She's 'happy and sad', and more than just another pretty face. In fact, this dark world of loneliness and sex finds her starting in a bad place and then sinking lower. However, director Olsson and cinematographer Kenji Katori ensure the film is stylish and atmospheric, and no matter how ugly things get for Margaret, the film itself is quite something to look at.

This is a side of Tokyo we don't often see, and the love hotels are a sub-culture that set up perfectly for those who have lost hope or control of their life. The city seems to prey on some ... no matter how beautiful they are. Kudos to Alexander Daddario for taking on this role. She's been around for a while with memorable appearances in "True Detective" (Season One), SAN ANDREAS (2015), and BAYWATCH (2017). It's nice to see her go deeper and darker, and let's hope it opens up some new opportunities for her.

Right down to the main character being a teacher.

Writers with new ideas are obviously rare

Lost Girls and Love Hotels is a drama thriller film based on the novel of the same name by Catherine Hanrahan. Starring Alexandra Daddario in the lead role, it tells a potentially intriguing story about one woman's fling with danger in the most slow moving and tedious way possible.

In Tokyo, Japan, American expatriate Margaret (Alexandra Daddario) teaches English pronunciation at a school for up-and-coming flight attendants. Margaret spends her nights with her friends Liam (Andrew Rothney) and Innes (Carice van Houten) wandering the streets of Tokyo getting drunk at bars and hooking up with random men at love hotels. One night, Margaret comes into contact with Kazu (Takehiro Hira), a high ranking member of the Yakuza and despite the latter due to be married soon, the two of them start a romantic relationship.

When done correctly, a film focusing around a forbidden romance can make for great entertainment. This is usually due to the escalating tension and that constant feeling of a startling revelation being what causes things to go wrong, or right in some rare instances. What "Lost Girls and Love Hotels" fails to understand is that there needs to be some kind of a draw for the audience to care about what is going on. At no point does the film ever attempt to make any of these characters even remotely interesting in what they do or what their motivations are. We are shown that the lead protagonist Margaret is in Japan because she wants to be as far away from home as possible, yet despite the plausible reasons she provides, it is difficult to feel any connection to her outside of mere surface-level sympathy. Likewise, her love interest Kazu is an infamous Yakuza member, of which are known for their brutality and strict code of conduct, but we never see him carrying out any activities related to the gang nor are we shown how much of a threat he can be. Instead, all of his actions are merely implied to the viewer, which defuses any explosive moments that could have made for a great story. In fact, if it weren't for the scenes that show him brandishing Yakuza tattoos all over his body, I may have forgotten he was even part of such an allegiance.

Director William Olsson was clearly going for a noir vibe when shooting this picture, both thematically and appearance wise. The cynical outlook on life that the two lead characters seem to share helped make their chemistry all the more believable as they passionately made love while the shadows of the dimly lit rooms provided modesty where necessary. In spite of this, none of these sex scenes were as impactful as they should have been, instead feeling like an awkward attempt at padding, and I put the blame on poor pacing decisions on the director's part. So many moments in this film either went nowhere or dragged on for an indiscernible amount of time, often causing me to lose interest. That's not to say his technique was entirely ineffective, as there were a couple of shots that showcase how large and immersive the city of Tokyo can be to a foreigner, but as mentioned earlier, it is hard to feel anything towards our protagonist if we don't care enough about them in the first place.

I give some credit to Alexandra Daddario for taking on a role like this, as it does seem like something of a step-up for her to be playing a character who isn't simply a beautiful woman with little to no personality. Her character does at least come across as educated in what she teaches, and during the first half I wanted her to succeed, but all of that changed when she started making foolish and reckless decisions in the name of love. Those longing to explore new horizons in a foreign land might find this relatable but I found frustrating to watch as she took a downward spiral thanks to the constant mistakes she was making. Additionally, Takehiro Hira felt underused as Kazu. Although this may have been done deliberately to keep his Yakuza associations a mystery, it still would have been nice to actually be shown just how dangerous he could be.

In conclusion, it's a shame that despite all of the potential being there that this film turned out to be such a disappointment. It seems like one of those times where the novel from which it was based on is likely much better than its film adaptation. Having never read the book, nor do I have any desire to do so, I'll just have to assume that to be the case and accept this for the mediocre story it is.

I rate it 4/10

This is a movie with oddly dark and difficult subject matter. It was very well acted and is certainly a quality work of writing, production and direction. This is not a happy movie but certainly worth a watch. I haven't experienced a emotional effect like this in a movie since "9 and a half weeks" with Basinger and O'Rourke and there are several parallels. Having said that, in many other ways they are certainly not the same. I would recommend a watch just because it is well done and unique. Heed the R rating!