Haunting for those of us who faced things similar

Rating: Null/10 (8 November 2003)

I found "Lost in Translation" to be a haunting movie. It's the story of a movie actor -- no longer at the top of his game in the movie business, but able to cut a living off his pass success: he is in Japan to do a commercial for a whiskey company, for which he'll earn $2M -- and a young woman, married just two years, in Japan with her photographer-husband. Both are overcome by the foreign nature of Japan (which I understand is utterly different than any place else). Both are in a bit of an emotional free-fall, but for different reasons. Bob, the actor, played by Bill Murray, is I'd guess in his late 40's or early 50's and is starting to honestly face the prospect of getting old. Bob's wife of 25 years, never seen in the movie but rather heard on the phone, appears to be more interested in decorating and tending the kids than in Bob as a person. Charlotte, somewhere in her early 20's, appears to be mature for her age, and is married to a somewhat immature man. Her husband, John the photographer, is off for days at a time, leaving Charlotte all by herself in the hotel room. So the two see in each other as manifestations of what they think they want or need at that point in their life. Their sense of isolation and loneliness exaggerated by the size and overwhelming nature of Tokyo. They cross paths in the hotel and strike up a companionship, and that's when the tug-of-war starts.
The haunting nature of this movie, for me at any rate, was found in the sad and lonely way Bill Murray played his character. It wasn't a pathetic sadness, just a dis-jointed loneliness. And the attraction Murray find in this other woman -- a younger woman at that -- is something I can relate to, as I'm sure many others can as well. Murray plays the struggle in his heart nearly flawlessly: the pull of excitement and newness against the sense of the proper as well as the honest commitment he has to his wife. It made me painfully uncomfortable at times, because I know that feeling all too well.
All that said, there is one scene in this movie that steals the emotional strength of the story. It's unfortunate because the scene in question could have been dropped without loss of continuity of plot.
***SCENE SPOILER***
The scene in question is where Bob Harris (Bill Murray) wakes up to find that he'd spent the night with the lounge singer. Had that scene not been included, then the moral struggle portrayed by Murray would have been all the more powerful. As it stands, his having violated his marriage vows with the lounge singer makes his resistance to Charlotte's attraction far less powerful. The integrity of Murray's character was sold for a short five minute scene that could easily have been eliminated. Without that scene, the struggle Murray's character is undergoing is a powerful one of temptation versus what's right. With that scene -- us having seen that Murray's character doesn't know, or isn't able to follow, what's right -- simply leaves the strength of his conviction in question.