Like Someone in Love ** (NR) For a drama about a young hooker (Rin Takanashi) having problems with her boyfriend, this subtitled Japanese film is surprisingly un-sexy. The girl seems reluctant enough about her work to evoke some compassion. She’s sent on a "date" with a kindly old retired professor ((Tadashi Okuno), who becomes fond of her, even driving her to college the next morning for her exam. He meets her angry young beau, who seems not to know what she does for a living. That leads to a superbly-written conversation in his car while waiting for the lass to finish the day’s academic chore.
Unfortunately, the rest of the script fails to capitalize on the setup it’s just delivered. It’s seems as if writer Abbas Kiarostami couldn’t figure out what to do with the three intriguing principals he’d crafted. That dissipates the empathy his two stars generated for the first hour in a mish-mash of further, forgettable proceedings. (3/15/13)