It’s one of my favourite genres; the ‘all in one night’ rom-com drama, the best example of which is probably Richard Linklater’s fabled Before Sunrise. The two sequels develop the notion in a different direction, but the original nails the key idea; two people meet, spend a night in each other’s company, (usually without too much emphasis on sex) and form a bond that may or may not continue. You could drop Anomalisa into the same category, or In Search of a Midnight Kiss, or even last year’s Step Back, Doors Closing. Joshua Woodcock’s One Night in Tokyo reworks the traditional formula with fresh success; it’s a bitter-sweet story of an unlikely romance, forged in the embers of relationship failure.
Reza Emamiyeh plays Sam, an Iranian American who travels to Tokyo with romance on his mind; he’s headed into the arms of his girlfriend, or so he thinks. Instead, Becca (Cailee Oliver) turns out to be very keen to see him, but not for the right reasons; she’s been waiting for him to arrive so that she can quickly break things off with him. Distraught, as anyone would be, Sam books himself on the next flight out, which isn’t until the next morning, but ends up hooking up with Ayaka (Tokiko Kitagawa), with whom he initially seems to share little in common, not least a language.
Something about the hustle and bustle of neon-lit, rain-soaked Tokyo seems to inspire film-makers to address issues of loneliness, and Woodcock leans into this, making a film that lands somewhere between Wong Kar-wai’s Chunking Express. The characters turn out to be agreeably cine-literate once they’ve figured out how to use their phones to translate for them; Sam’s favourite movie is Chaplin’s City Lights while Ayaka loves Tokyo Story; it’s nice that Woodcock projects Sam and Ayaka as aspirational, high-cultured characters. Sam and Ayaka knock back whisky shots in bars, walk the evening streets, sample ice-lollies and endlessly chat, with subtitles carefully utilised as the hours fly by. Ayaka is an engaging creation, very much a product of the city she inhabits, and it’s also a plus that the dapper Sam’s heritage isn’t one that we’re used to seeing in mainstream movies.
‘I’m all ears,’ Sam tells Ayaka before she unfolds a story about her father; One Night in Tokyo can feel a little stagey sometimes, with monologing characters, but that’s fine; people monologue in real life. Woodcock’s neat drama challenges the audience to listen, to pay attention, and to empathise, and these are qualities that are rare in cinema, and to be cultivated in indie films in particular. One Night in Tokyo is a sweet, heartfelt and emotionally honest film that’s easy to recommend to a target audience; hopefully this will find a life on steaming platforms, where it’ll stand out from the crowd by dint of Kitagawa and Emamiyeh’s genuine chemistry, and Woodcock’s sensitive, articulate writing and directing.
AloJapan.com