Directed by Hirokazu Koreeda. Written by Yoshiie Goda and Hirokazu Koreeda
A newcomer’s outside perspective can reinvent how we do things and show us what was taken for granted shouldn’t be. In the same vein, a stranger’s comment on a particular set of behaviors that’s become second-nature to us can force us to relearn ourselves, and a child’s innocent question about why things are the way they are can invite us to re-engage with the world.
Movies mine this phenomenon frequently because it’s almost always inspiring to see someone meet the world for the first time. You only need to look as far back as Poor Things to find a good example as Bella Baxter takes the plunge into the wider world beyond and challenges the stale status quo. Air Doll, Hirokazu Koreeda’s story about a blow-up sex doll who suddenly attains a soul and a real body, is not a good example.
Full of clichés, half-baked observations, and schmaltzy sequences, the story of Nozomo, brought to life by Bae Doona, is a two-dimensional affair that circles itself a few times before slumping over like a tired dog, an uninspired go at something meant to be pointed and insightful. She first observes, then contacts, and finally interacts with a wide variety of people, seemingly meant to suggest she’s seeing a cross-section of society and therefore attains a deeper knowledge thereof. Yet, when she opens her mouth or reacts, it’s a dull spectacle. If wisdom is meant to spill from the pages of Koreeda and Goda’s script, consider them barren.
Air Doll is social commentary with no bite, might, or insight, and worse yet, without its own logic. One moment, Nozomo struggles to form sentences, but then she delivers a severe monologue on how human beings can’t see past the fog of modern life to recognize our common humanity and the wonder of the world. She’s self-aware of her nature as a sex doll, but this self-existential awareness doesn’t extend to grasping that people aren’t full of air and won’t deflate if they’re cut.
You can commend Koreeda for taking a giant swing with this premise of a sex doll of all things navigating the facts of life and trying to gain some understanding of it all, but the affair is as empty as Nozomo’s innards. It’s ultimately like someone who shows up at the party with a stuffed eagle for a hat. Eye-catching, but then you speak to the person wearing it and you realize this excess is to make up for a profound lack of something else.
Koreeda’s a modern master at telling stories about makeshift families and how connection manifests, and his cinematography is an almost embarrassing assortment of pearls. Maybe the most life-affirming thing about Air Doll is that even Koreeda can produce a clunker.
Mikkel Frederiksen 