The Ramen Girl Movie Review

I enjoy foodie movies. They show a deep passion for food and cooking. My favorite is probably Julie & Julia.  I discovered The Ramen Girl (2008) while browsing around NetFlix. The thought of a movie about someone learning to make a traditional dish that was not from her own country interested me a great deal. But the actual movie fell short of its potential.

Abby (Brittany Murphy), four years out of college, an aimless child of privilege, follows her boyfriend to Tokyo, who then promptly leaves Abby and heads to Osaka for another job prospect. In hopes that her ex-boyfriend will return to Tokyo, Abby decides to stay. While there, she is miserable; she speaks little Japanese and has a dull job as a law-firm gopher. One evening she stumbles into the neighborhood ramen shop operated by the aging master chef Maezumi (Toshiyuki Nishida) and his wife Reiko (Kimiko Yo). His soup cheers Abby, so she decides to apprentice herself to him. He’s uninterested, but she is insistent. So he shouts at her and gives her all the cleaning to do. Weeks go by, and still she persists, not knowing if he will ever actually teach her to cook, or if she will ever have the requisite spirit for the job.

Brittany Murphy gained acting notoriety in one of her early films, Clueless, where she played the target in a teen girl make over movie. She’s also known for voicing Luanne Platter in the King of the Hill prime time animated sitcom. It seems she primarily played dim-witted young ladies for most of her career. Abby in The Ramen Girl wasn’t much different. She’s depicted as an air head, but the problems Abby is faced with aren’t all that eccentric given her situation. I’m sure anyone would react with such composure when stuck in a large city in the middle of a foreign country where they don’t speak the language. I felt like I was supposed to think Abby was simpleton, but I found her more relatable than the target stupid blond jokes.

The Ramen Girl was pretty tame. It felt about as bold and realistic as a Disney Channel original movie featuring Ashley Tisdale or Miley Cyrus; pretty, spoiled blond girl who has never worked a day in her life suddenly has to try to prove herself rather than sit around looking pretty. Unlike Disney’s TV-cinema abominations, The Ramen Girl does a half decent job with this story trope. Maybe I’m biased since I like foodie movies so much. I’ve seen plenty of other movies about self-actualization and personal fulfillment convey the theme a whole lot better, but this wasn’t bad. Julie & Julia did the same thing through cooking, but was so well done and inspiring that it prompted me to start this blog. I didn’t really feel like I needed to go live my dreams by the end of The Ramen Girl.

There’s also the classic master/student dynamic between Abby and Maezumi. The Ramen Girl is to ramen what The Karate Kid is to martial arts. The wise master puts the student through grueling training to teach them how to perfect a skill. One would not suppose that making soup would be all that grueling, but The Japanese are very proud of their traditional ramen dish, or at least they are depicted so in this movie. There are lots of scenes that accentuate the difference between American and Japanese culture, but none were very impressive. Lost in Translation did the same thing so much better.

The Ramen Girl is a nice, cute feel good movie, but is pretty bland and predictable. You can see everything this movie tries to achieve done better in other movies. Unlike characters in the Disney Channel movies mentioned above, Abby is a young adult woman, not a 15 year old girl. We see her drinking and smoking pretty regularly. That may be a red flag for any viewers who want to watch this with their young kids. Abby looks so much like the Disney Channel teen girls that impressionable kids may get the wrong impression about appropriate drinking or smoking ages. I’m glad I saw The Ramen Girl. It wasn’t too bad a movie, and it made me want to learn how to make authentic ramen soup rather than that those fifteen cent packages you can get at any grocery store. The Ramen Girl might be worth renting to see it once, but certainly not worth the money to own a copy.

Do you have a favorite "foodie" movie? What is it and why do you like it so much? Comment below and let me know!

Lost in Translation Movie Review

Bill Murray has been appearing mostly in independent films and as cameos in bigger budget films. For Lost in Translation (2003) director Sofia Coppola wrote the lead role specifically for Bill Murray, and later said that if Murray turned it down, she wouldn't have done the movie.  In fact, she wasn’t even sure if Bill Murray was going to do the film, only having a verbal confirmation. It was on the first day of filming that Murray actually showed up.

Bob Harris (Bill Murray) is an American film actor who is far past his prime. He visits Tokyo, Japan to appear in some celebrity endorsed commercials. While at his hotel he meets Charlotte (Scarlett Johansson), the young wife of a visiting photographer. Charlotte is trying to find her place in life, and Bob is tolerating a mediocre marriage back in the States. Charlotte is puzzled with how much her husband, John (Giovanni Ribisi), has changed in their two years of marriage, while she's been unable to launch a creative career of her own. The spark has gone out of Bob's marriage, and he's become disillusioned with his career. Bob and Charlotte end up being perfect, yet improbable traveling companions. Both suffer confusion and some amusing antics due to the cultural and language barriers  between themselves and the Japanese. As their companionship deepens, they come to the realization that their visits to Japan (and each other) will soon end. But does it need to?

Murray’s and Johansson’s characters were both well developed and interesting. Bob was inundated with mundane domestics; even while he was in Japan, his wife sent him carpet samples though FedEx so he could decide what color to re-carpet the home office. She also faxed him samples of shelves to decide how to redecorate their home. Phone calls with his wife usually involved her being frantic about home decorations and screaming children, and not listening to anything Bob has to say.

Charlotte is stuck at a hotel while her negligent husband is doing photo shoots for celebrities. He doesn’t seem interested in his wife of only 2 years. When Charlotte and John run into a celebrity  acquaintance (played by Anna Faris), John jumps at the opportunity to do a one-on-one “photo shoot” with her and tells Charlotte that “he'll be working, and she won't have a good time if she comes along with him.” So Charlotte is constantly left on her own to mope around the hotel and wonder what her place in life is.

These are relatable issues, yet other issues bring to mind the “First World Problems” internet jokes where pictures of people crying are coupled with captions like, “had to park far from the door.” Bob is a celebrity! Who hasn’t dreamed of being interviewed on talk shows, having people snap photos of you, and asking for your autograph? Charlotte is visiting Japan! What percentage of Americans get to travel overseas, let alone to Japan? If I were there I’d be on the streets every day touring and exploring everything I could, regardless of how busy my self-absorbed spouse was. That was a theme in the movie; the attitude you have towards events in your life really affect your feelings about life. These characters were literally doing what many people dream of and were still despondent.

Over the course of the film, several things get “lost in translation.” In a particularly funny scene while Bob is working on a commercial, the Japanese director uses lots of hand gestures and long bits of instructions in Japanese. An interpreter translates this to Bob as, “He wants you to turn, look in camera. OK?” Bob looks bewildered and asks, “…is that all he said?” The characters themselves are lost, too; lost in the alien Japanese culture, lost in their own lives, and lost in their relationships.

The relationship that Bob and Charlotte form is interesting. It’s almost expected that if (in movies) two characters of the opposite sex form a relationship it will always be a sexual one, maybe even a romantic one. But the relationship that Bob and Charlotte form is a platonic relationship. They share something deeply personal with each other; their true feelings, rather than something as commonplace as their genitals. Their relationship was fascinating to see, and I would love to see more relationships like this in movies. In fact, the only sexually explicit content in the movie is some topless strippers in the background when the two are exploring Tokyo.

The scenery captured in Lost in Translation is so gorgeous! There are strange locations that captivated the feel of Japan, and the movie really explored Japanese culture. In the context of the characters being tremendously out of place, everything looked amazing and defies description. From simple family-run restaurants to flashy casinos and arcades to tranquil Zen monasteries, everything was eye-catching and beautiful to see. I’m ready to go visit.

Lost in Translation was a good movie, though I don’t think it would appeal to everyone. It’s pretty slow moving and dramatic. The visuals are stunning, and I think it’s worth watching for that aspect. Most of the “adult” elements (apart from the previously mentioned strippers) are only talked about, not visually depicted. It’s a fairly clean movie. It ended with the characters simply feeling better, but their problems remained unresolved. That felt a bit anticlimactic, but still complimented the theme of attitude affecting your view of life. This was a well done movie, but I wouldn’t rush out to see it unless you enjoy drama films.

Can you think of a movie that really captivates the essence of a certain culture? What's the movie and what's the culture? Comment below and tell me about it!