For a sex movie, “Norwegian Wood” is about as dry as a pocketful of sand. Even for a film set in a land that considers paper folding an exciting activity, this is dull stuff.
In a story based on the Haruki Murakami novel set in 1960s Japan, student Watanabe (Kenichi Matsuyama) yearns for Naoko (Rinko Kikuchi of “Babel”), a depressed patient at an asylum for the mentally unstable, while at school the relatively outgoing Midori (Kiko Mizuhara) flirts him up despite being encumbered with a boyfriend.
The graceful visual style of the movie (directed by Tran Anh Hung), the production design and the plaintive score would seem wonderful if only anyone in the movie registered a pulse. These quiet little love-dolls keep talking about sex, but little of the act takes place due to assorted frustrations and hang-ups. Instead, snow falls, glances are exchanged, long walks are taken, the wind blows, tears flow. Consider the movie a two-hour haiku.
To liven things up, occasionally someone commits suicide, in a gesture I suppose you have to be a 20-year-old girl and/or Japanese to consider terribly romantic.