Review of Lost Girls & Love Hotels (2020) by Perli — 05 Feb 2021

An existentialist erotic thriller with a romantic whiff, but eroticism is purely narrartive and atmospheric with no open sexual scenes, meaning that sexual encounters that are boldly initated by the female heroine, are mostly indicated by the story and cut off or used for dialogue (yes, there are scenes with naked bodies and lovemaking, but very discreet with very little naked skin).

And in the story, there is no real threat to the lead and no dynamic action in a sense of thriller genre, except for the existential angst of the "lost" heroine (lost girls from the title) and for the fact that at the end we realize that her lover is a yakuza, because we notice that his little finger was freshly cut.

So people who expect hot action movie with dazzling female lead will be disappointed. And there is a bare minimum of a story, indicating a kind of existential emptiness of the alienated life of a disconnected foreigner in Tokyo's urban sprawl.

But it's never-the-less a fine little movie with interesting acting by Alexandra Daddario who develops a kind of expressive charismatic presence in the movie without much talking that unexpectedly shows real acting talent.

It seems that the movie was inspired by the films like In the mood for love and Lost in translation, although storywise far less articulated.