Director: William Olsson
Starring: Alexandra Daddario, Takehiro Hira
Year: 2020
Lost Girls and Love Hotels is part Earthquake Bird, part White Bird in a Blizzard, a weird combination of angsty, birdy movies that’s definitely not worth trying to figure out. It’s a genre that makes little sense; American Girl in Foreign Country living in Self Abuse on her way to Finding Love. It’s simply questionable, like who was this movie crafted for and why was it made at all? Most of the handful of people who actually made time to see this film last year didn’t like it, and the reasons are as simply as they are few; it just isn’t well-made, well-acted, or well-intentioned.
Margaret lives in Tokyo because she wants to be as far away from the life she was leading as is humanly possible. She likes being alone, or says she does anyway, but she spends her nights getting drunk and getting screwed, filling the emptiness within her that threatens to tear her apart. When she falls for a powerful stranger, who turns out to be some sort of rich gangster, she has, for a fleeting moment, some hope that her life can involve someone else and can turn out …happy? But nothing gold can stay, and was it even that shiny in the first place.
Alexandra Daddario does what many young actresses have done before; goes adult to show her range and to show fearlessness. More power to her, some times audiences need to be snapped out of the preconceived notions we have, need a good smack to remind us that these women are artists, not mannequins. It seems odd, perhaps, to get naked to do that, but I actually see the point; bare it all, show that you’re ready for anything, give us something grown up to let us know that you’re here to work. Hollywood should do the same with men, that’s my only problem with it, and then there’s the sad fact that this isn’t a guaranteed recipe for success, which I guess is a bigger issue. Daddario only comes across as desperate here, not decadent, and the film fails to deliver any passion or power, resulting in a joint disaster that’s among the very worst of the year. It’s a slow, dark, depressing look at existence, one that simply isn’t artistically fashioned well enough to impress past the somber surface. We need more from dramas this twisted, maybe a little more reality, or perhaps only more talent.
My rating: ★ ★ ☆ ☆ ☆