Body parts have been found in Tokyo harbor that may belong to Lucy's missing friend Lily Bridges (Riley Keough), an extrovert American exile who was last seen leaving the Swedish woman's apartment. Based on a prize-winning 2001 crime novel by English author Susanna Jones, this solidly crafted Ridley Scott production is sprinkled with classy ingredients, including Alicia Vikander as headline star. A brief clip from Scott's Japan-set crime thriller Black Rain (1989) is also a neat little insider homage. Please also read our Privacy Notice and Terms of Use, which became effective December 20, 2019. Lily’s culture shock wears off quickly, and the other details that would lend Earthquake Bird more of a sense of specificity are limited to a conversation Lucy has about whether Teiji’s features are more Western or Eastern (“Ketchup face” vs. “Soy sauce face”), and Lucy’s protest to one of the detectives she’s no different from Japanese women. Earthquake Bird is streaming on Netflix now. (That’s a red flag for any relationship.) Having learned to repress guilty childhood secrets for decades, Lucy lives a highly regimented, emotionally chilly existence. Netflix's Earthquake Bird is a not particularly engaging thriller featuring an inert performance from Alicia Vikander. Reviewed in the United States on April 8, 2020 Starting out with so much promise, full of original humor and mystery the collapse of the story from the climax to conclusion of the story is so much more disappointing. The film, directed by Wash Westmoreland and based on the novel of the same name by Susanna Jones, opens with Japanese police questioning expat Lucy (Tomb Raider’s Alicia Vikander) about the disappearance of her friend Lily (Riley Keough). Distributor: Netflix Unspoken suspicions finally boil over during a shared trip to the picturesque Sado Island, when Lucy is mysteriously taken ill and all but abandoned by her two travel companions. FACEBOOK EMAIL ME. As Lucy's feelings for her enigmatic Japanese lover deepen into obsession, Lily's flirtatious interest in Teiji soon becomes a source of simmering jealousy between the two women. Following its world premiere at London Film Festival, it is heading for a limited theatrical release on Nov. 1, then streaming on Netflix from Nov. 15. Editor: Jonathan Alberts In fairness, each character’s apparent role shifts by the movie’s end. Having raved over Westmoreland's previous films, I was stunned to find Earthquake Bird woefully underwhelming. All three leads are terrific — especially Vikander, whose Japanese is impressive — but they’re working with material that doesn’t measure up to their talents. (There’s a regrettably Swiftian contrast between Lily and Lucy, i.e. A key strength of any superior genre thriller is making even the most unlikely plot twists and contrived character flaws appear plausible, but Earthquake Bird barely seems to believe even in its own pulpy premise. The Hollywood Reporter, LLC is a subsidiary of Prometheus Global Media, LLC. 3.0 out of 5 stars The Earthquake Bird gets lost. | Cookie Settings. Lucy, who’s fluent in Japanese and in love with the culture, has been living in Japan for five years when she’s first introduced to Lily through a mutual friend (Jack Huston), who asks her to help get the newcomer acclimated. There’s a similar dynamic at play in the love triangle in Earthquake Bird — for most of its runtime, it casts the other woman as the story’s villain. 11:50 AM PDT 10/10/2019 Netflix’s thriller Earthquake Bird is too little, too late. Alicia Vikander and Riley Keough flounder in tepid psychosexual thriller, based on the Susanna Jones novel. In a series of loosely interlocking flashbacks, the film chronicles the chain of events leading up to Lily's disappearance. I dare you.”. Venue: London Film Festival. Lucy claims she isn’t jealous, but she obviously is, to the point where the line between reality and imagination starts to blur. Cinematographer: Chung Chung-hoon Lucy Fly (Vikander) is a prim Swedish translator who has lived and worked in Japan for five years, long enough to consider herself a virtual native. Earthquake Bird feels like a step back from that, muddling a potential thread on how women are often pitted against each other. Cast: Alicia Vikander, Riley Keough, Naoki Kobayashi, Jack Huston, Kiki Sukezane, Ken Yamamura Mostly working within a crisp, dark, autumnal color palette that suits the noir-ish mood, Westmoreland and his Korean cinematographer, regular Park-chan Wook collaborator Chung Chung-hoon, methodically work through a checklist of Japanese tourist sights, from Mount Fuji and Tokyo Tower to bullet trains, kimonos and karaoke bars. © 2020 The Hollywood Reporter We use cookies and other tracking technologies to improve your browsing experience on our site, show personalized content and targeted ads, analyze site traffic, and understand where our audiences come from. Wash Westmoreland’s last film, Colette, helped reclaim the life of French novelist, actress, and journalist Colette, whose husband published her work under his name. All rights reserved. Read 184 reviews from the world's largest community for readers. He hardly helps his cause by letting the plot's two most significant deaths happen offscreen, and giving Lucy a back story of historical wounds that feels like glib, by-the-numbers pop psychology. Perhaps the goal was to make a thriller that's more intellectual, less trashy fun. 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Terms of Use | The dial on that antagonism shifts as Earthquake Bird becomes more of a thriller than a melodrama, but it shifts too late. Credit is due to Vikander for breathing life into such a flatly written, fairly unsympathetic protagonist, as well as delivering lengthy passages of dialogue in Japanese. Lucy largely aims her ire at Lily, even when Teiji tells her he’s deliberately behaving more warmly toward Lily in hopes of making Lucy jealous. In the explosive recriminations that follow, ancient family secrets and unreliable confessions muddy the waters. Smooth, still shots become choppy and shaky, flitting around Vikander as she grows more and more panicked. Westmoreland and cinematographer Chung Chung-hoon (Oldboy, The Handmaiden, It) at least give the film a sense of style, lingering on the scenery and on subtly shifting expressions to make the growing unease more palpable. But for all its smart plumage, this bird never takes flight. The characters suffer from that lack of focus; Lily is the most underserved, as she’s made into an antagonist for much of the movie. Earthquake Bird Review: Netflix's Alicia Vikander Whodunnit Gets the Little Things Right By Jordan Hoffman @jhoffman Nov 14, 2019 9:00 AM EST Much of Earthquake Bird feels familiar.

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