Intelligent, complex and in many aspects unique movie from a promising director

Rating: Null/10 (29 February 2004)

First of all, let's make one thing clear - Lost in Translation is not a movie for anybody. It's not predictable, it's not full of clichés. And this review is more about the crappy reviews that flood IMDB than the movie itself. Well, keep on reading.
To sum up the storyline, Lost in Translation is about two lost and lonely souls in the vast megapolis of Tokyo, an environment that could make anyone feel lost and insignificant. And, as fate would have it, sometimes a few of these lost souls will find a kindred spirit.
That's the core of Lost in Translation. Yes, it IS a comedy, as well as a drama. But not for anybody. This movie is obviously not too easy to understand for many of the viewers, since it's not as obvious and simple as hollywood-productions in general tend to be. It's still funny, but it's also subtle, intelligent and complex. And anything but simple and obvious.
Naturally, this means that some will hate it, because they don't understand it. Well, that's OK with me. Usually, I feel that there are way to few movies that appeals to those of us who have higher demands than Joe Sixpack, but here's for a change a movie that truly appeals to the demanding viewer. Some of us prefer to read books, while others find comics challenging enough. It's the same with movies.
To put it bluntly, if Lost in Translation would have stuck to the "standard plot" of american movies, the storyline would have been something like this: Bored middle-aged man meets bored young woman. Resulting in an affair, they divorce their respective spouses, and start over with each other instead.
But it doesn't, thankfully. Instead, we get a story about friendship across the boundaries of age. The characters are as different to each other as day is to night, yet they understand each other better than their respective spouses.
In three words: A great move.
I know, I've read a lot of this mumbo-jumbo (from those who didn't quite get it) about "wannabe intellectuals" and all that, that we who liked this movie only pretend to like it in order to show off, and not because we actually did.
Wrong. I say that this is a great movie and I mean it!

I've picked out a few statements from other reviews below:

There's no good acting in this movie.

The movie is badly directed.

And so on and so forth. I'm used to read "this-is-the-worst-movie-I've-ever-seen"-reviews here on IMDB. But I don't take those reviewers that seriously. Usually, the problem is that many reviewers don't understand that they might not be capable of telling good acting/directing from bad. Anyone can write a review here on IMDB, mind you... A good reviewer knows that there are many aspects to what you review, and nothing is truly black or white, but a shade of gray.
Besides, Lost in Translation is not THAT complicated, it's like your average novel, and shouldn't be to hard to understand, in my opinion.

But as someone said, movies primarily exists because a lot of people are either too lazy or stupid to read books, and I think that Lost in Translation partially proves that to be a fact.
The bottom line is that this is a great movie from a director that I personally find very promising, and NOT hyped and overrated due to her lineage, as some would have you believe. The acting was great, about what you could expect from a seasoned actor like Bill Murray, while the performance of Scarlett Johansson was quite impressive, given the fact that she's still just a teenager, but managed to pull of the role of a woman who are probably supposed to be in her mid-twenties.
Very watchable movie. At least, if you for a change like to watch a sophisticated, touching, unique and intelligent movie, instead of the usual garbage that's just like a million other movies.