MOVIE REVIEW

By Kevin Thomas, Times Staff Writer

In the decade since "Muriel's Wedding," Australia's Toni Collette has emerged as one of cinema's most beguiling and versatile actresses. Her latest picture, "Japanese Story," a compelling and edgy love story with a twist, offers her a gutsy all-stops-out role worthy of Barbara Stanwyck, and she makes the absolute most of it in one of the year's best screen performances. This stunning film should put its director, Sue Brooks, and writer, Alison Tilson, on the map.

With cropped blond hair, Collette's tanned and lean Sandy Edwards is a dynamic take-charge type, a geologist partnered in a Perth, Australia, firm that designs software for the mining industry with Matthew Dyktynski's more laid-back Bill Baird. Since Bill's little daughter has a birthday coming up, Sandy is stuck having to escort Hiromitsu Tachibana (Gotaro Tsunashima), the son of a Japanese industrialist, on a private visit. Sandy is far too forthright and strong a woman to disguise her unhappiness at the chore, but the Tachibanas' company is too important a business contact for her to try to get out of it.

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Sandy and Hiro fail to impress each other. He strikes her as imperious and he regards her "as very loud and aggressive — and very stubborn," describing her in Japanese in her presence to someone on his cellphone. He insists on having Sandy drive him on a lengthy and ultimately adventurous excursion over Western Australia's vast Pilbara desert. The rugged, even dangerous journey, proves a test of wills that yields a mutual attraction that takes both by surprise, hurtling them into a tender and passionate love affair.

Working with Tilson's solidly developed script, in which humor and irascibility are swept away by emotion, Brooks, her stars and her renowned cinematographer, Ian Baker, express the transformation the unlikely couple experience with economy, grace and conviction. Brooks generates a smoldering sensuality few male filmmakers could equal, and the moment in which Sandy regards the sleeping Hiro, whose features look to be carved in ivory, is piercing. Then the filmmakers pitch a jolting fast curve that takes the film and Collette's stellar performance into a much larger and affecting context.

Collette is fearless in reaching deeply into her emotions, and her expressiveness as an actress comes across as completely natural because it so clearly comes from within. In an instant, she can switch from salty and a little hard to lovely and vulnerable to profoundly wrenching. The way she moves is equally affecting and, seemingly intuitively, she knows how much to let out and how much to hold back. She is well matched by Tsunashima, also an actor of much presence and many resources, but this Japanese story belongs to Collette.

'Japanese Story'

MPAA rating: R, for some sexuality and language

Times guidelines: Some erotic sequences, and the film as a whole is far too intense for youngsters.

Toni Collette...Sandy Edwards

Gotaro Tsunashima...Hiromitsu Tachibana

Matthew Dyktynski...Bill Baird

Lynette Curran...Mum

Yumiko Tanaka...Yukiko

Samuel Goldwyn Films and Fortissimo Films presents, released by Samuel Goldwyn. Director Sue Brooks. Producer Sue Maslin. Screenplay by Alison Tilson. Cinematographer Ian Baker. Editor Jill Bilcock. Costume designer Margot Wilson. Music Elizabeth Drake. Production designer Paddy Reardon. Running time: 1 hour, 39 minutes.

Exclusively at Laemmle's Sunset 5, 8000 Sunset Blvd., West Hollywood, (323) 848-3500; Landmark's Westside Pavilion Cinemas, Westside Pavilion, 10800 W. Pico Blvd., West L.A., (310) 281-8223; and the Edwards University 6, 4245 Campus Drive, Irvine, (949) 854-8818.