Slow Moving, But Outstanding

Rating: 9/10 (15 March 2004)

Lost In Translation was easily the most critically acclaimed movie of 2003. moviecitynews.com placed in on more Top 10 lists that any other film, including Return of the King and Mystic River. It is a small budget, low key film, made sparsely, filmed in a casual and meandering style, in which nothing really happens.
Bill Murray is Bob Harris, an action movie star on the decline of his career. Unlike many of his colleagues, he has been married to the same woman for many years. He is in Tokyo for a commercial shoot for a Whiskey company. He will be paid very well, but laments that he should be somewhere else doing a play or something worthwhile.
Scarlett Johansson is Charlotte, a young, beautiful girl, recently graduated from an Ivy League school and recently married to a workaholic photographer. She is in Japan to accompany her husband on a photo shoot, and possibly to discover herself. She is neglected and hurting and really does not know why.
In a lesser film or a less insightful one, Bob and Charlotte would meet, fall in love, sleep together and run off in the end while Celine Dion belts out a ballad over the end credits. But Lost In Translation is not that film. It is an intense, deeply moving, deliberately paced character study that doesn't tell a story as much as it reveals it.
Bob and Charlotte have a series of accidental meetings early in the film. This is intertwined with some flat out hilarious scenes of Bill Murray trying to relate to a Japanese commercial director, and Charlotte touring Tokyo. Eventually, the talk, dine, and spend all of their time together. The bulk of the film has the camera follow the two leads through the Tokyo night life while they meet people, go to parties, a hospital emergency room, a strip club and sushi restaurant.
Many people I have spoke to about this film found it tedious to the point of being nearly unwatchable. To enjoy Lost In Translation, you have to appreciate not only dialogue but circumstance. This film spends most of its time letting the audience draw their own conclusions about what the leads are thinking and feeling. The ending typifies this technique, and you will either be deeply emotionally moved or completely dissatisfied. I loved this movie. I loved it for the way it slowly reveals the relationship with the two main characters, and allows us to draw our own conclusions. See it and judge for yourself. **** out of ****.