More Dabbling From Sofia Coppola

Rating: 2/10 (12 August 2005)

First she under-whelmed us with her writer's abilities with "Life Without Zoe." Then she added just a right amount of awful to Godfather III with her truly wooden acting. Now, having dabbled in everything else entertainment related, she dons the director's hat in some sort of vain hope that she will have found her calling - or at least something she doesn't completely suck at.
Scarlett Johansson, in the "I'm really not based on not Sofia Coppola, *wink wink*" role stars as Charlotte, a poor, ignored wife who has been all but kidnapped to Japan by her neglectful husband on his latest business trip to Japan. Surrounded by an island full of those inscrutable, shifty, swapping L's for R's, Japanese, she finds herself alienated in deluxe accommodations that must be costing her husband's employers more than most of us make in a year.
Throw into the mix, Bill Murray as Bob Harris, a burned out has-been who sleepwalks through his latest gig - a Japanese whiskey commercial, because he probably thinks he should be doing Shakespeare - and probably for a white audience at that.
The two meet and while the sparks obviously don't fly, they take joy in each other's misery, mutual isolation in the world's most populace island, and their asinine observations that the Japanese can't pronounce their R's properly - ignoring the fact of course, that neither one of them can speak a lick of Japanes. Typical dumb ass American tourists.
Aside from the generic xenophobic swipes, Sofia Coppola, who also wrote this (if it can be said to have a story at all) sprinkles the story with every cliché possible in an attempt to make her characters seem less like the whiny, bitchy, cry babies they are. At one point Charlotte begs her husband to "just skip today." We're supposed to tut-tut with disapproval as he tells her he can't, but given that this photography gig is only a few weeks, it would be the equivalent of one of us skipping out on, oh, a month of work. I think we can forgive him for not acceding to his needy wife's wishes.
The story goes nowhere as it chronicles the journeys of Charlotte and Bob. If this movie had been made by someone else, ANYONE else, it would have been completely missed. As is, with the Coppola name, it has garnered accolades from every hipster doofus wishing for another Great Movie Dynasty. Sorry,but Sofia Coppola falls short in her foray as a director, too. I will grant her that the movie is full of some positively beautiful images,but maybe next time she'll cut to the chase and just publish a picture book instead.