The film is primarily about Bob's midlife crisis. He's running away from his 25 year marriage, his son and his life in America as he is experience the feeling that he doesn't know who he is and what he wants. He meets Charlotte, a young American woman, while at his hotel bar in Tokyo. They enter into a friendship that does not turn sexual. In the end, Bob sleeps with the hotel jazz singer and it is a major betrayal to Charlotte. What we find is Bob is a man who simply does what he wants when he wants to do it without any deep regard for those in his life who care for him.
We see this in his relationship with his wife as he has left the country while their marriage is under strain. He has also left during his son's birthday, and finally he forms a relationship with Charlotte and sleeps with another woman. Bob's unresolved issues become the motivation for his every action, and unfortunately the film doesn't seek to reveal the consequences of his actions. Charlotte does leave, but they are friends and no questions about his marriage are resolved, which is the point this film is making: we tend to allow our issues to go unresolved, we run away from our problems and never fully seek to find a course of action for healing. How long will we allow the cycle of pain to continue? That is the question raised in the film, as well as, "How long will we allow others to hurt and carry on with their destructive behavior?"
