Someone commented that this movie may be enjoyed by lonely middle aged women who read Cosmopolitan. Well I am a middle aged woman, but I read Mojo and Mother Jones - funny because about twenty minutes into this film I found myself wondering if this movie was made for twentysomething women who demand to be taken seriously, but are a little emotionally stunted. I thought this film was really shallow and bloated in its minimalistic approach to convey characters that were humorless, colorless and poorly sculpted. And I love minimalism and road movies. The bathroom scene made me cringe with its haunty tinkle tinkle piano music - Rei thinks to herself, "Why does this man understand me?" Gee I don't have a clue. I'd like to understand you, but I need just a teeny bit more meat to chew in order for me to care.I've liked Japanese pop/alt/rock for some time and I thought this soundtrack was sad, I mean bad. The song about all the trash and the snow and the snowy trash was perfect for this film. It tried to say something by saying not much and lyrically, to me, came off as laughable.Vibrator made me wonder if perhaps because of thousands of years of culturally imposed emotional repression, this film does in some way represent a Japanese "new wave" and if it takes baby steps, then director Hiroki is at least crawling pretty well. But the film is sort of like Rei's first upchuck - half digested watery booze and few bits of artificially colored snack chips.

One of the best films of the year (released 2003 although I saw it at the International Film Festival in San Francisco). Meditative, intelligent, intimate, the film addresses, realistically, I felt, what it feels like to feel lost. The sexual encounters, the truck driving sequences, the breakdown episodes, the scattered moments of shared and nearly unexplainable joy and/or release all feel real. Great, great film. Highly recommended.In response to the first reviewer of this film, I can only say that some people like fast-paced movies and some like slow-paced movies and some like both. If you only like faster paced movies, this probably isn't for you. If you like to have a movie that is a little crunchy, a little gritty, then see it. Not for those who are easily offended or bored.

I saw Vibrator as part of a film festival in Greece.It was truly one of the worst movies of all time. The show at a supermarket, where the two stars meet and immediately "hit off", proceeding to a sex scene in the back of the man's truck. For the whole movie, the viewer watches the "road trip" that follows. Images of the Japanese countryside are all this film has to offer, and beyond that, chaos.I personally gave up on the film when the duo started a conversation on CB technology, which lasted about five minutes film time and truly wrecked my nerves.I have no idea who might find this film interesting. Lonely middle-aged women who read Cosmopolitan might perhaps find the film expresses their own ambitions about life, like going around with a truck driver, talking about CBs and the futility of things and the like. There is no "deeper symbolism" in this film, no "high-level cultural event" here. This is a film that deserves the under 100 people who have seen it worldwide.If you're a road movie maniac, go and see it. You might find it less horrible than I did. If not, pass. Heavens, STAY AWAY!

Rei is a freelance writer embattled by personal demons. We first meet her in a convenience store where she is buying too much alcohol and not enough food. At the magazine rack she pauses to contemplate the happiness of the glamour girls on the glossies for which she writes. Only later do we realize that this is self-reflection. A chance encounter with truck driving Takatoshi, leads to a two day romp of sex, friendship and introspection. It's unclear if what happens to her is the product of her writer self imagining it all as a magazine serial (hence the inter-titles and voice of the narrator).The relationship has a certain healing sweetness that comes out in simple daily pleasures of Japanese life, like a bath or a bowl of hot soba on a cold winter's day. It's a little fluffy, but this seems to be an intentional point of the story: the musings of a glamour writer reaching out to the young readers who struggle in silence with the pain brought on by the ultra-thin, ultra-beautiful ideal put forward by the magazines for which she writes.In the end, it's a road-buddy picture that gives Western viewers a taste of the complex Japanese landscape that is both brilliant in its natural beauty and frightening in its industrialization.