A Great Movie, Trapped in a Good Film

Rating: Null/10 (8 October 2003)

Have you ever sat through a movie that is really good, has a compelling story, great characters, and yet still felt a little cold? I mean you really liked the movie, it made you think, it didn't play down to you, and yet you were hoping for little bit more? Sophia Coppola's new film LOST IN TRANSLATION, is a good movie with a great movie caught inside it.
TRANSLATION stars Bill Murray (Groundhog Day) as Bob Harris, a former hotshot action star at the end of his career. His marriage may be falling apart, his life is coming unraveled, and he's just been offered two million dollars to hawk an alcoholic beverage in Japan. Life seems to be getting worse until he strikes up a relationship with an unlikely friend.
Her name is Charlotte (Scarlett Johansson, The Man Who Wasn't There) and she just so happens to be in the same boat. Her photographer husband (Giovanni Ribisi, The Other Sister) is living a dream and ignoring her. She's alone in a city of millions.
TRANSLATION is so rich with ideas. Here you're presented with two people who are alone forced to cling to each other for lack of anyone else. In America would these two friends ever find each other? Probably not, but here they are strangers in a strange land and all that makes a difference.
Bill Murray once again takes the smart road and distances himself from the films that made him a star. He plays a character of such stunning vulnerability and yet silly charm. I loved how he disappears into a scene. You forget you're looking at the guy from MEATBALLS. I sometimes miss the silly and crazy actor he once was, but at least when he turns in a dramatic performance it's well worth watching.
Johansson should also be congratulated for her fine performance. I liked her understated charm and silly little smile. The camera loves to linger on her because she's got this unique screen presence. Of course she's beautiful, but not as a typical actress is beautiful. She's beautiful like that girl in you're high school homeroom is beautiful, or that random women on the street is beautiful. Johansson can exist in the real world. She's average and yet mysterious, cute and yet understated.
All that aside the biggest problem with the movie is that much of the plot is half realized. To make up for this Coppola trains her camera on Johansson as she a stare out windows, lays in bed, takes walk around Tokyo and then stares out the widow again. A little of this is okay; it even worked sometimes. I gave us a look inside her head. But after we've figured out that she's lonely we keep watching her look out windows, and walk around. It was too much and prolonged the meat of the movie, the relationship between her and Bob.
To the films credit there is a great sequence in which Bob and Charlotte are laying together in a bed. You can tell they have a connection that sparks are flying, in a Hollywood movie this is the point that they'd begin to kiss. But in this film Bob does something far more interesting he just touches her foot. In real life you have to face the ones you love in the morning, Best not throw it all away on a person you hardly know.
TRANSLATION is about what connects people. Is it a love story? Is it a story about friendship? Is it a story about fidelity? Is it about following your heart? Yes and no, and maybe so. What's here is a compelling piece of filmmaking that dares you to do something we, as causal moviegoers, are seldom allowed to do. It dares us to think.

**** out of5