While not a mainstream subject, interracial romance has been treated in films often enough and long before such relationships became relatively accepted in at least more cosmopolitan areas. That sixty years ago Australia and Japan were bitter, fearful enemies, and that both societies are today viewed as rather closed and racist, however, has little bearing on Aussie Sandy Edwards (Toni Collette) and Japanese businessman Tachibana Hiromitsu (Gotaro Tsunashima) in Sue Brooks's Japanese Story.

Nor is there any personal-historical burden here, as one might expect and which forms a basic element of memory and forgetfulness in films such as Hiroshima mon Amour. Skin color or facial features are not at all an issue, either, and although there are hints of cultural differences, they are not insuperable. Further, the Japanese man's initial macho attitude is far from restricted to his society, and in any case quickly dropped; and, while grounded in upbringing, his family's later quiet stoicism might be found in any number of places, especially with people surrounded by a language they do not speak.

Rather, Alison Tilson's script, originally with the backing of Film Australia but eventually optioned, centers almost entirely on the quite different but changing personalities of the two physically and emotionally isolated leads. Attractively blonde and outdoorsy, Sandy is a geologist, a profession somehow intended to indicate "living a life of surfaces." Talky in her way yet moody, she quarrels easily with her concerned, garrulous Mum (Lynette Curran) and works for a modern city firm. She doesn't appear to do much in her line but is chosen to escort the son of a wealthy Tokyo entrepreneur on his tour of outback mines.

Canceling personal plans, she arrives late at the small airport where the lithe, handsome son does not respond to her informal unbusinesslike openness, has her load his luggage, and, in subtitled Japanese, on his cellphone describes her eyes (blue) and rear end (big) to people back home. After the mine, the young man insists that they continue on, over winding dirt paths to a remote site. The SUV gets stuck, and at first he proves quite useless and naïve in the beautiful but deceptively dangerous western Pilbara Desert (originally conceived as another, in South Australia) of sun-scorched days and freezing nights.

The vehicle is freed, however, and following Hiromitsu's gracious (and surely difficult for him) apology, it is all too obvious that the two will connect. He supposedly learns English from her, although either his linguistic ability is phenomenal or else he knew more than he had let on, as they take delight in freedom and the landscape and, she the aggressive one, in one another.

(SPOILER FOLLOWS) 

His wallet-photo of a woman and two young children is understood but left uncommented on, as lonely Sandy and Hiromitsu grow with each other. Unexpectedly, in a matter of seconds -- though perhaps prefigured by an earlier swim in a river -- all ends, except for the aftermath. It has really taken too much time to get here, along a predictable path, so an unsuspected dénouement comes too late, by comparison goes on too long, to save things.

What Sandy has learned about herself and about life, from her friend and lover and then his wordless widow (Yumiko Tanaka), could have formed the starting point of an interesting little tale. Trite plotting and dialogue and uninspired acting, however, doom the project, along with slips like a final voiced-over letter-from-beyond that tiredly jokes about pronunciation which happens to be on a printed page. Handled with skill, Japanese Story might have been a mild fluffy film, but almost every facet except the stark and underutilized scenery conspires against it.

(Released by Samuel Goldwyn Films and rated "R" for some sexuality and language.)