A Bright Mix Of Story And Film

Rating: 9/10 (8 July 2004)

Sofia Coppola's efficient yet quirky romance is a very good engagement of two mediums, the short story and cinema. Using the technique of linking her converging story (two abandoned souls meet and form a gentle relationship while adrift in a foreign country) with short yet open-ended scenes, Coppola stays on course and doesn't descend into the dull trap of exposition--she succeeds in capturing the essence of a budding relationship, not the deep, complex flavor of it. Her script finds a popular American action film star (Bill Murray) in Tokyo to do some advertisements for a whiskey company; he meets the stranded young American wife (Scarlett Johansson) of a photographer (Giovanni Ribisi) and together they stumble into a relationship borne partly of their isolation and partly out of growing frustrations with their respective marriages. For all the usual observations and forced absurditities about foreign countries (naturally, the Japanese are seen as odd and other-worldly, pale imitations of Americans), Coppola's script is smart: she has insights that belie her youth and she circles the awkward relationship, allowing it to sneak up on you; by the end, even though it's still awkward, it's become accessible and you can easily infer what she doesn't want to tell you. Coppola gets an excellent performance from Johansson and a superior one from Murray; she seems to have captured him at a vulnerable point in his life--he's so in tune with his character's alienation that it appears to reflect his current point of view and not merely a function of the role. It also helps that he's frequently hilarious: his deadpan confusion gives the film a cinematic boost that makes Coppola's film seem less weighted down by its prose. It's a gently lulling picture, with unhurried rhythms; you never suffer the demand to feel that so many modern romantic films constantly thrust upon you and though there's an ambiguous, huddled ending, Coppola openly invites you to share your interpretation with her.