"I hope you've had enough to drink. It's gonna take courage."

Rating: 7/10 (17 April 2018)

I did better with this movie the second time around. The first time was in the theater upon release and it just didn't strike me as having any relevance at all, which is usually a sign that I might have nodded off from time to time. What we have here is something of a bittersweet but unrequited love story between a late middle aged, has-been actor (Bill Murray) and the twenty-something wife (Scarlett Johansson) of an up and coming photographer on assignment in Tokyo. I say unrequited, but the relationship never really approached physical expression because I believe both parties were well guarded against getting into something that they would ultimately regret. As Charlotte's (Johansson) husband, we almost never see Giovanni Ribisi's face, which lends support to the idea that Charlotte had a marriage in name, but one in which she was not an active participant in. In Bob Harris's (Murray) case, we never even get to see his absent wife, as she's back home tending to the family while Bob's pursuing a paycheck. Watching the film can be an exercise in frustration because nothing much happens, while all the time one wishes that something would. Bob and Charlotte would make an interesting couple if not for the age disparity, or for the fact that their personal commitments lie elsewhere. Writer and director Sofia Coppola cleverly throws that scene into the end of the story where Bob searches out Charlotte in heavy Tokyo traffic for one last good bye, and he whispers a message into her ear that seems to assuage any consternation over his departure. It would be cool to know what he might have said, but better for us that it not get lost in translation.