Lost in Translation (2003)

                       LOST IN TRANSLATION
                (a film review by Mark R. Leeper)

CAPSULE: Two Americans meet in Tokyo and spend the week as close platonic friends. On the way we see their frustrations with the strange culture in Tokyo and how each deals with his loneliness. They get to know each other discussing love, marriage, and their lives. Rating: 6 (0 to 10), high +1 (-4 to +4)

Bob Harris (played by Bill Murray) is in Tokyo filming commercials for a familiar brand of Japanese whiskey. Harris was a big star in America, though most of his films were made in the 1970s. Now he is on the downside of his career and he still seems to be idolized by the Japanese but mostly as a matter of form. These days he is less an actor and more a family man living with the little stresses with his wife.

Charlotte (Scarlett Johansson) has had two years of a meaningless marriage to John (Giovanni Ribisi) her photographer husband, currently assigned to Tokyo. Both Bob and Charlotte are at loose ends and a little tired of a town that is so strange to them. After seeing each other a few times in the bar of their hotel they strike up a friendship. Bob goes out with Charlotte and meets some of her friends in Japan. They decide to share their time and their minds, becoming intimate in several different ways, all of which are platonic. The film builds to Bob and Charlotte coming to a bittersweet understanding of their relationship.

Though the two had found initially they could not really connect with each other, as time goes by they are more willing to open up. Charlotte (in her early twenties) needs help with a marriage that is not really working after two years. Bob's marriage of twenty- five years is working, but has become routine. There are a few (not nearly enough) heart-to-heart talks between the two, each lonely and lost in a different way. Bob ties to give Charlotte the benefit of his fifty-plus years of experience. (Side note: I saw the film on Bill Murray's 53rd birthday.) The middle-aged man gives his wisdom about marriage and how to get through life.

LOST IN TRANSLATION is about several things including the difficulty that some American have adjusting to the Japanese society. One continuing theme is the brashness of Japanese advertising. Besides the fact that Bob is in Tokyo to create some very Western-looking whiskey ads (with a convenient product placement). We return to images of Technicolor bright neon advertising at night. During the day office buildings project films of dinosaurs and elephants on their mirrored windows. Karaoke comes up several times and the singing is uniformly painful. In fact, bad singing in general is a recurrent theme.

Bill Murray's acting as Bob has gotten much positive comment though I think he overuses that bemused look and cynical half smile he is famous for. The humor is frequently slapstick as in a run-in with a ski machine. Scarlett Johansson of EIGHT LEGGED FREAKS and THE MAN WHO WASN'T THERE is quite capable in the role of Charlotte looking like a younger version of Uma Thurman. It really is their film with Giovanni Ribisi in third billing having a much smaller part. The film works best when the two of them are having quiet talks together with Bill Murray playing it quiet and sincere. Sadly there are fewer of such moments than the film needed.

LOST IN TRANSLATION was written, directed, and co-produced by Sofia Coppola, daughter of Francis Ford Coppola who gets and executive producer credit. I rate the film a 6 on the 0 to 10 scale and a high +1 on the -4 to +4 scale. (I can't quite figure out where the Harris family could have lived to be having breakfast when it was 4 AM in Tokyo. Perhaps it was Hawaii.)

                                        Mark R. Leeper
                                        mleeper@optonline.net
                                        Copyright 2003 Mark R. Leeper

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X-Language: en
X-RT-ReviewID: 1200051
X-RT-TitleID: 1125647
X-RT-AuthorID: 1309
X-RT-RatingText: 6/10