Did you hate your vacation trip? Re-live the boredom.

Rating: Null/10 (27 February 2005)

Lost in Translation was a serious disappointment to me. I saw it last night and have spent quite a bit of time since then pondering why it got such good reviews.
People who have found themselves at loose ends in a foreign country will identify with the main characters. And probably the actors, directors, and everyone else involved in this production have lived through similar circumstances. That having been said, why would you want to recapture a period of minor discomfort by making a full-length movie about it? In the end, I have to conclude that this movie is an in-joke for the jaded world travelers among us, those who travel so widely and frequently that they are bored by foreign countries rather than challenged.
Just because people do a good job of representing one of life's uncomfortable experiences, that doesn't make it worth the price of a movie rental. One might as well watch a film about constipation. I kept waiting for something interesting to happen - a crisis, a romance, anything... but no. (Maybe saying that nothing happens makes this review a spoiler, so I will check the box above.) Maybe that was the point, but I wish I had not wasted my time watching it.