This film translates extremely well

Rating: 8/10 (2 November 2003)

This is the second film directed by Sofia Coppola and she has proved to be a director of enormous skill and passion. Story is about a famous American actor named Bob Harris (Bill Murray) who has come to Tokyo, Japan to make a whiskey commercial for a lot of money but he hates himself for it. He is staying at a posh Japanese hotel and having a difficult time getting any sleep because of the jetlag. His wife from home sends him carpet samples Fed-Ex and when they speak on the telephone they skirt the issues of their marriage woes. Also staying at the hotel is Charlotte (Scarlet Johansson) who is married to John (Giovanni Ribisi) and he's a photographer on assignment. Charlotte has come with him to Tokyo but he leaves for extended amounts of time and Charlotte has nothing to do but ponder the troubles in her two year old marriage. Charlotte and Bob bump into one another from time to time and even share a drink but finally Charlotte asks him if he wants to go out someplace else besides the hotel bar. He agrees and they go to meet some friends of hers and they hang out at karaoke bars and finally seem to be comfortable. For the next few days they share meals and watch television and even fall asleep but they don't get intimate though, they're relationship is more about companionship and being comfortable with each other while they both discuss they're marriage woes. Sofia Coppola's first film was the dreamlike "The Virgin Suicides" and in that effort she created some incredible atmosphere which she does here to some extent also. Both films have a slow and deliberate pace and while some may find that to be a glaring fault I thought otherwise. This is a film about two lonely people in a foreign city that have found each other and together they seem to function better by being able to talk to one another since neither can communicate well with they're spouse. The film is enhanced tremendously by the two performances of Murray and Johansson. Murray has slowly developed into a very good actor and his maturity was evident in the comedy "Rushmore" which was also a very good performance. Coppola likes to have the camera linger on her characters and this allows a natural performer like Murray to excel and in those scenes where the camera stays on him we get those trademark "Murray-isms". This may be his defining performance that people will always point at but I have a feeling that we'll be seeing other terrific performances from him in the future. This also is a breakthrough role for Johansson who has been solid in smaller roles in her career. As good as she was in "Ghost World" this is her biggest role to date and she's up to the task. She displays both maturity and poise in a role that could have been played in a one note effort but she shows more layers to Charlotte than we would expect. Its a solid performance that should open a lot of eyes from people who are not familiar with her. I'm not convinced that this is a great film and one of the reasons is that with Coppola's style of filming it at times leaves the characters emotionally distant and its hard to embrace these characters at times. But this is a minor gripe because this is a very good film with two exceptional performances. Coppola has once again directed a film with a very unique visual style and she really has emerged as one of the more interesting directors.