The Coppolas still delivering the goods?

Rating: 6/10 (12 June 2004)

A middle-aged actor, with his career in its downs, finds himself in Tokyo for the shootings of an advertisement. There, he'll meet a just-married girl, who left everything back in the States in order to support her photographer husband.
It seems as Sofia Coppola is trying to prove from the very beginning of her career that she has far more talents than her famous last name. After the almost autobiographical Suicide Virgins, she comes up with a story that is a model for our era. And this is the era of easy solutions, of emphasizing on body pleasures and on the unconditional expression of feelings. She is dealing with a love story that many people would think that has never existed, just because there weren't any physical proves. But if there's a reason that makes this movie so special, is exactly because it portrays all these things that would never happen in front of our eyes, the things that no one would say, but all of us feel in the inner part of ourselves. Inside one of the most crowded cities of the world, our heroes feel more lonely than ever before. They find on each other the compassion they seek, not just because of the same language, but because they share something deeper. They both are face to face with life's choices. It doesn't matter that she's in the beginning and he's in the middle of the course. The circumstances are the same.
Although Coppola is touching perfection as far as the script is concerned, from a directorial point of view she's unable to cover certain weaknesses. In its biggest part, the film is nerveless and the few emotional breakouts of the plot aren't followed with intense scenes. However, these weaknesses are well-hidden thanks to an astonishing Bill Murray. The way he combines a psychotic comic personality and a gloomy tragic character in the same role is admirable. Johansson also shows that she has a lot to give in acting, as long as she continues with the series of great choices that has so far made.
Lost In Translation, without coming up to the unprecedented reaction that the movie spawned to critics all over the world as it ain't The motion picture event, it can easily excite the viewers with its melancholy, humour and lyricism.