PLOT: A Japanese girl, sold into slavery to an okiya in 1929, grows up to be a famous geisha. But she still cannot use her power to get the man she pines for so fervently. So she keeps on pining, and pining and ...
Memoirs Of A Geisha, with its lush vistas, ravishing cinematography and stylized costumes, looks like a Hollywood classic. Maybe even an Oscar contender.
Looks are deceiving.
Rob Marshall's film, his first since the musical Chicago song-and-danced its way to its clutch of six Academy Awards, is a melodrama, a big ball of emotional mush. And, for all the sugar, there is a bitter aftertaste.
So Marshall should forget about a repeat performance in the best picture sweepstakes. Memoirs may generate craft nominations, perhaps even a best actress nod for lead Ziyi Zhang, just for looking so good. But this is not a best picture winner, not even in the race.
The flabby storyline, which threatens to put viewers to sleep with the overlong running time, is the major culprit. Robin Swicord reduced Arthur Golden's 1997 novel to a linear love story overshadowed by a droning, English-language narration from an aged woman who tells the story as a flashback (the New York portion of the novel is thrown out in the film version).
The action starts in 1929, when a fisherman sells his daughters to a flesh pedlar who deals with an okiya (a geisha training house) in the hanamachi (the geisha district) of a major city with a fictional name.
With brilliant photography and editing shaping the movie's tone and our disoriented reactions in these early sequences, one of the two girls is rejected and banished to a brothel. The other is accepted by the geisha house's cynical mother (Kaori Momoi) and grows up into a stunner. From age 15 to 35, from 1935 to 1955, she is played by Ziyi Zhang (of Crouching Tiger, Hidden Dragon fame), who is absolutely radiant.
As for language, the opening sequence is in Japanese. As soon as the narrator speaks up, the dialogue reverts to spoken English and stays that way. Realism is ignored.
As the melodrama evolves, our geisha heroine blossoms. Selling her virginity becomes a focal point. And her bitter rival (Gong Li) plots to destroy her. In counterbalance, a prominent geisha veteran (Michelle Yeoh) protects and mentors Zhang, for hidden motives.
Zhang's finest moments come in her geisha debut. Marshall & company devised a staggeringly beautiful dance sequence -- and Zhang executes it perfectly.
The rest of the movie, including the glossed-over war years, focus on our heroine's obsession with The Chairman (Ken Watanabe) as well as his inability to provide the emotional connection she wants. That is because of his obligation to his boss and best friend.
You could say Memoirs Of A Geisha is Gone With The Wind without the substance, and certainly without the fiery temperament that made Scarlett O'Hara a lot more interesting than Zhang's geisha Sayuri is now.
Hollywood manufactured this kind of romantic spectacle repeatedly in its so-called golden era, but few of the movies -- Gone With The Wind is a singular exception -- survived the test of time to play today with any vitality.
Memoirs Of A Geisha is a throwback to that era and it already feels creaky and old, an empty if beautiful shell.
BOTTOM LINE: Despite the stunning visuals and the general excellence of all the technical aspects of Rob Marshall's film, he still delivers a lacklustre romantic melodrama.
(This film is rated PG)
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