Tran Anh Hung?s Norwegian Wood is meticulously faithful to the book it?s based on, Haruki Murakami?s 1987 novel of the same name: It takes no significant liberties with the plot, and it captures the novel?s delicate, half-hopeful, half-mournful tone. So why, unlike its source material, does it feel only half-alive? It?s so easy, too easy, to get lost in the book-vs.-movie debate. But a movie like Norwegian Wood is a peculiar case ? its intentions are sterling, and it?s hard to pinpoint any technical flaws. The problem, maybe, is that it?s trying�too hard; Tran has such firm control over the storytelling that the resulting picture has no room to breathe.
Watanabe (Kenichi Matsuyama) is an aimless young university student in late-1960s Tokyo. His closest friend, Kizuki, committed suicide at age 17, leaving behind his childhood love, the fragile Naoko (Rinko Kikuchi, the Japanese actress who made a splash in the 2006�Babel). Watanabe ?inherits? the friendship of Naoko, and it seems that the two might fall in love. But Naoko disappears ? the intensity of the blossoming relationship is too much for her, sexually and emotionally, and she enters a retreat-like sanitorium in the country. Though Watanabe continues, sweetly, to pine for her, he also starts tagging along with his more sexually adventurous roommate, Nagasawa (Tetsuji Tamayama). He also embarks on a fledgling friendship with another student, Midori (Kiko Mizuhara) ,who, unlike Naoko, seems boldly certain about what she wants out of life.
She is, perhaps, a little too bold for Watanabe: She outlines her idea of the ideal lover (essentially, a man who will be at her beck and call, so she can then turn him away). And she informs him that she already has a boyfriend, anyway. Watanabe continues to visit Naoko in her forest retreat, though…
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