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Poster for Fear and Trembling

Fear and Trembling

2003 · 1h 47m · UNRATED Comedy, Drama
Directed by Alain Corneau

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Overview

Amélie, a young Belgian woman, having spent her childhood in Japan, decides to return to live there and tries to integrate in the Japanese society. She is determined to be a "real Japanese" before her year contract runs out, though it precisely this determination that is incompatable with Japanese humility. Though she is hired for a choice position as a translator at an import/export firm, her inability to understand Japanese cultural norms results in increasingly humiliating demotions. Though Amelie secretly adulates her, her immediate supervisor takes sadistic pleasure in belittling her all along. She finally manages to break Amelie's will by making her the bathroom attendant, and is delighted when Amelie tells her the she will not renew her contract. Amelie realizes that she is finally a real Japanese when she enters the company president's office "with fear and trembling," which could only be possible because her determination was broken by Miss Fubuki's systematic torture.

Director and cast

Critics on Rotten Tomatoes

Top critics, in their words

All reviews
91%
Tomatometer
Fresh

The best office comedy since Office Space.

G. Allen Johnson, San Francisco Chronicle
Fresh

One of the screen's most cuttingly funny looks at office life.

Michael Wilmington, Chicago Tribune
Fresh

... subtly sexual and erotic, despite the fact that every scene takes place in the office and there is not a single overt sexual act or word or gesture or reference.

Roger Ebert, Chicago Sun-Times
Rotten

The film is more ambiguous about its characters' desire than it needs to be.

Wesley Morris, Boston Globe
Fresh

The delicacy of the film comes from the fine performances, particularly Kaori Tsuji as Fubuki.

Stephen Whitty, Newark Star-Ledger

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