Brilliant

Rating: 10/10 (13 October 2003)

Lost in Translation is a tale about two different people coming together and finding each other while on a search to find themselves. Bill Murray plays Bob Harris, a has-been actor who is in Japan to film a whiskey endorsement. He is going through the standard midlife crises and his being plopped into such a strange and foreign culture only magnifies his feelings of isolation. Scarlet Johansen plays Charlotte, a young girl who has been married for 2 years to John, played by a hilarious Giovanni Ribisi. John plays the stereotypical work-centered yuppie who doesn't give his wife the attention she needs and leaves her to sit and ponder her existence for days on end while he is out at photo shoots.
This is definitely the breakthrough role for Scarlet Johansen, who you may have seen supporting Thora Birch and Steve Buschemi in 2000's Ghost World. She delivers her role as a lonely Yale philosophy degree holder with an almost eerie grace. Bill Murray also gives what I would call the defining performance of his career in Lost In Translation. He delivers in classic form on the comedy element of this performance, but also manages to handle the dramatic elements of his character with surprising sensitivity and depth.
They meet in a bar and initially are attracted simply to the familiarity of someone from the States whom each can understand. But as they continue to run into each other, and eventually decide to hang out while they're stuck in a Japanese hotel, they begin to find that it is on a much more profound level that they understand each other. They relate to each other in ways that are therapeutic for both of them.
As Murray and Johansen weave this intriguing relationship into a perfect tapestry before our eyes, we begin to wonder exactly what makes a relationship work between two people. We are forced to wonder why some relationships only work on paper (don't forget, both our characters are married, however unhappily) but fall short in real life, while others are virtually impossible on paper, yet come to life in the field, if only for a short time. The script, which was brilliantly crafted by Sofia Coppola (daughter of Francis Ford), makes suggestions about the philosophical nature of relationships, and how they contribute to the makeup of who we are. She also directed this film, with all the precision and care of an auteur who is looking to establish herself stylistically in the industry.

Lost in Translation is a great film, the best I've seen yet this year. It's humorous throughout, even though the laughs never really rise above a chuckle. The humor, while it is cliché-ish and standard for a culture-clash film, always comes smoothly and naturally, and is never forced. Tanslation plays to the immense acting talent of both leads and has a sense of ambient symbolism which lets its motifs flow naturally without drawing attention to themselves. Try to see this film if you are at all interested in other human beings or the dynamics between two people.