Twitch has a review of Hirokazu Kore-Eda’s Air Doll

An uninformed moviegoer may read the initial premise of Air Doll and think, “Wow, a Japanese movie about a sex doll that comes to life? That MUST be zany! There’s absolutely no way that could be — I don’t know — some sort of meditation on the human condition that whiplashes back and forth between charming comedy and mind-throttling scenes of urban despair! I mean, she can float!” And that, of course, is where they would be wrong — the sex doll in question doesn’t actually float until pretty far into the film, and then only the once. Oh, and also, yes, it is a meditation on the human etcetera. If you’re not ready to watch the juxtaposition of how much joy life can bring versus the quiet lives of desperation that people can fall into, please, for your own good, watch something else. And I say this in the course of actually recommending the film itself.

Read the full review here.

I’m an unabashed fan of Hirokazu Kore-Eda (Afterlife, Nobody Knows, Hana), but even so, I was a little nonplussed by the premise of his latest film, which is about an inflatable sex doll that comes to life. But this review certainly encourages me, and I especially love that little sentiment at the end: “…I didn’t mind the pacing — if something is as beautiful and thought-provoking as this, I can spare a few more minutes to let everything unwind in its own time.” So true.

On a related note, you can watch several clips from the film via Nippon Cinema. They’re subtitled in French, but hey, it’s still new Kore-Eda footage.