take me to Tokyo

Rating: 9/10 (5 October 2003)

A brief and strictly factual description of "Lost in Translation" might go thus: "An American man in mid-life crisis and an American woman in young adult-life crisis meet in Tokyo, both experiencing their own culture shock, become friends briefly, and are enriched by their friendship." That sounds pretty boring, but thankfully the folks behind the movie were much better at making it than I am at describing it!!
The film is very funny, with many of the laughs driven of course by the culture shock and language barrier factors. Murray (Bob) and Johansson (Charlotte) also playfully poke fun at each other's personal struggles. "Did you get a Porsche yet?" Charlotte teases Bob. But the movie also brilliantly balances its humor with poignant moments, as Bob and Charlotte each experience the real isolation of culture shock, and the ultimate loneliness of personal struggle.
"Lost in Translation" is also about marriage. Bob reflects on his 25-year marriage through several baffling contacts with his wife back in America. Charlotte questions her 2-year marriage to her college sweetheart as she confides to a friend back home, "I don't know who I married." At one important point in the script, I realized there must have been a large number of married couples in the movie theater last night. The theater was nearly full, and there was all of the usual crunching and munching and slurping that you hear in American movie theaters. But you could have heard a pin drop when Charlotte asked Bob, "Does marriage get any easier?"