Lovely and Nuanced.

Rating: 9/10 (23 April 2005)

I have not seen Sofia Coppola's first film THE VIRGIN SUICIDES as of this posting but I can tell that from her exquisite direction on this, her second film, she has delivered something truly delicate and rare like a mini-rose. LOST IN TRANSLATION is a wonderful, absolutely beautiful movie. There isn't a false note in this contained story in which two people with a marked age difference meet in an extremely foreign country and slowly discover their feelings for each other. Scarlett Johansson delivers a performance made more haunting and touching due to the simplicity in which she plays Charlotte who is going through an odd time in her life: married to John (Giovanni Ribisi), who may be having an affair with Kelly (Anna Faris), she feels displaced and alone in her hotel, and that is an emotion that can really hit someone, especially when so far away from home and familiar surroundings. Bill Murray's Bob Harris is an actor who is also going through his own baggage and who, in meeting Charlotte, has found a connection. His own performance is very restrained, very delicate, a man who has lived a lot who is intrigued by this young woman. Much in the style of stories by Marguerite Duras or French New Wave, or Michaelangelo Antonioni, there is a lot of subtext and implicit eroticism in the simplicity of Bob and Charlotte's affair in LOST IN TRANSLATION which comes through in its reflective but not intrusive nature, and this elevates their love story to one which will stay with the viewer long after the resolution has come and Bob has told Charlotte those last words that we are not meant to hear. After all -- it is their private moment.