The story is told with the use of the voice over of the main character, Chiyo. It is compatible to the title of memoirs and an economical way of narration. The film explores the theme of material well beings and fame at the expense of freedom to pursue genuine love.

Director Rob Marshall adopts an unrestricted narrative for almost the entire film except the last sequence in which the restrictedness is completely revealed. Marshall carries forward his cinematographic and editing style from "Chicago" (2002) by using match of actions in unrelated spatial dimension and graphic match. Use of shooting angles to delay revelation of the characters is also common in the film. POV and tail-on follow shots are frequently used to reinforce the sense that Chiyo (young: Suzuka Ohgo / grown: Zhang Ziyi) and other Geishas are fumbling their way. The cello music from Yo-yo Ma is very fine. Yet the use of English instead of Japanese undermines the reality of the content (after all, it's an American production!).

Though the story itself is not overwhelmingly attractive in terms of romance and geisha's hardships, the combination of mise-en-scenes, staging, colours and music in their synergy from Marshall more than compensates the novel's weakness from Arthur Golden.