'Kumiko' offers treasures for those willing to look.

• Author: Long, Jeffrey
• Position: Living

Byline: Jeffrey Long

'Kumiko, the Treasure Hunter'

Distributed by Amplify

Rating: NR

Running time: 1 hour, 45 minutes

At first, we yearn to give advice to the headstrong young woman at the center of "Kumiko, the Treasure Hunter.'' But what makes us think she would listen? For Kumiko (Rinko Kikuchi) seems to connect with only one being on the planet -- her pet rabbit, Bunzo.

The 29-year-old lives in a small apartment and has a dead-end office job in Tokyo. There, her self-absorbed co-workers talk about perming their eyelashes. Kumiko's boss has her on special assignment: to make his tea and take his suits out for cleaning. He wonders why she does not have an upbeat attitude.

Kumiko may spend much of her life clad in plaid uniforms matching those of her workmates, but she also has been quietly making ambitious plans. Like Marion Crane in "Psycho'' (1960), she will dump her humdrum life. First, she will fly to Minneapolis. Then, like a character from another Hitchcock drama, she will head north by northwest, toward the Dakotas.

However, it is not Mount Rushmore, but Steve Buscemi, that has captured her untethered imagination. Specifically, her mind is focused upon the scene in "Fargo'' (1996) in which his character hides a cash-filled attache case in the snow. Equipped with a hand-drawn map, compass and flashlight, she will find the money and run.

Likening herself to a Spanish conquistador (though acting more like Don Quixote), Kumiko does indeed embark upon her quest for buried riches. Of course, like the deluded protagonists of "Nebraska'' (2013) and "Nurse Betty'' (2000), our heroine appears to be doomed to disappointment and failure.

Loner though she is, Kumiko aches to share her dreams of glory with another. So, from the upper Midwest, Kumiko calls her mother in Japan. But from the elder woman's perspective, their relationship is defined by terms of estrangement, not...