Two lives intersect in powerful 'Japanese Story'

Like the spare musical score accompanying it (in which a lone finger plucks out a haunting tune), "Japanese Story" is deceptively simple. Its story is familiar — two very different people find themselves thrown together by circumstance, and ultimately learn from each other — but quietly powerful, thanks to the lost, hopeless look in Toni Collette's eyes.

Collette, that strong-boned Australian virtuoso better known for her work in American and British films ("The Sixth Sense," "The Hours," "About a Boy"), here plays Sandy, a geologist in the Western Australia desert who reluctantly agrees to chauffeur around a visiting Japanese businessman, Hiromitsu (Gotaro Tsunashima). An unadorned, no-nonsense type, Sandy knows little about Japanese culture, and doesn't much care. "I'm a geologist, not a bloody geisha," she harrumphs.

The two climb into a rented white SUV and head out on a field trip to tour a mine, cruising along on an empty road with dry, sun-burnt mountains looming on the horizon. Director of photography Ian Baker ("A Cry in the Dark") finds a slightly menacing loveliness in the desert landscape, in which Sandy and Hiro look like tiny, pale ants in a vast field of brown. Trouble brews, the SUV stalls and the two gradually form a bond, as people who've shared something meaningful do.

Director Sue Brooks, working from Alison Tilson's original screenplay, takes the film in unexpected directions, which suits a story set in such uncharted terrain. And she understands the power of understatement. We're given very little biographical detail about Sandy and Hiro; instead, the actors need to show us, often wordlessly, who these people are.

Movie review Showtimes and trailer *** "Japanese Story," with Toni Collette, Gotaro Tsunashima, Matthew Dyktynski, Lynnette Curran, Yumiko Tanaka. Directed by Sue Brooks, from a screenplay by Alison Tilson. 99 minutes. Rated R for some sexuality and language. Metro.

Collette, in a rare starring role, has a range of emotions to go through; she's got showy moments when she howls and weeps while the unflinching camera watches, and a quiet scene in her apartment, in which she methodically prepares a baked-beans-and-sandwich supper with the efficiency of someone who's made many meals for one. Tsunashima, who looks pale and fragile (you're worried that the hot sun might melt him), registers less strongly, but you get a sense of this man's dissatisfaction with his life. And Yumiko Tanaka, in a tiny role late in the film, conveys a world of emotion — grief, embarrassment, forgiveness — in a quiet smile.

Brooks' delicate touch occasionally falters; there's a moment, in a brief scene of intimacy, that feels thumpingly heavy-handed in conveying the idea that their traditional gender roles are switched. But for the most part, "Japanese Story" is refreshingly simple and quiet. Sometimes a haiku can tell a story as well as a novel; sometimes less is more.

Moira Macdonald: 206-464-2725 or mmacdonald@seattletimes.com