Radiohead's Jonny Greenwood Scoring Tran Anh-Hung's NORWEGIAN WOOD

Given Radiohead's presence on the soundtrack to Tran Anh-Hung's I Come With The Rain it should come as no surprise that Tran has turned to Radiohead guitarist Jonny Greenwood to score his upcoming film adaptation of Haruki Murakami's Norwegian Wood.  But the fact that it's not surprising news doesn't make it any less fantastic.

Greenwood, of course, made his debut as a film score composer with P.T. Anderson's There Will Be Blood and he did such a fantastic job there that I'm honestly surprised that he hasn't had offers pouring in since. Anyone who has read any Murakami can tell you that music plays a vitally important role in the man's work so a good score is absolutely essential here and Greenwood seems like an inspired choice.

"I once had a girl, or should I say, she once had me."

The melancholy tune and sentiment of this classic Beatles song seems to have taken the life of Toru Watanabe (Kenichi Matsuyama), who is similarly uncertain as to how he should view his relationships. At heart, a quiet and serious young Tokyo college student in 1969, Watanabe, is deeply devoted to his first love, Naoko (Rinko Kikuchi), a beautiful and introspective young woman. But their mutual passion is made by the tragic death of their best friend years before. Watanabe lives with the influence of death everywhere, while Naoko feels as if some integral part of her has been permanently lost. On the night of Naoko's 20th birthday, they finally made love to each other. However, shortly thereafter Naoko decided to quit college and become a recluse. It is at that time Midori (Kiko Mizuhara) - a girl who is everything that Naoko is not - outgoing, vivacious, supremely self-confident - marches into Watanabe's life and he has to choose between his future and his past.