Wasting Daddy's Money

Rating: 1/10 (20 October 2003)

Sofia Coppola has triumphed by extracting from Bill Murray the kind of dramatic flair he had hoped (but failed) to project 19 years ago in "The Razor's Edge." Unfortunately, Coppola, as writer, producer and director, fails in almost every other aspect of this film.
While Scarlett Johansson's performance was spellbinding, she is much too young an actor to have made this role believable. Although her character delivers a line in which she says she is one year out of college (or about 22-years-old), Johansson could not fool the camera. She was 17 years old when filming began, and looked even more childlike in the nightclub scenes when she was smoking. Obviously, the age difference between Charlotte and Bob was one of the more significant aspects of their unlikely liaison, but that disparity would have worked had Coppola chosen an actor in her early 20s to play the role. In this instance, there is no way a man of Bob Harris' age, social status and background could have looked twice at, let alone contemplated any kind of relationship with, someone who looks like a junior in high school.
I also must wonder why Coppola chose to display Ms. Johansson's panty-clad posterior above the titles and kept her in panties in virtually half her scenes.
If one closely examines the dialogue, there is hardly an exchange between Charlotte and Bob that would justify their spending any time together or explain why they found each other's company enjoyable. Just because they were overwhelmed by their surroundings and alienated from their respective mates does not mean two people of such diverse backgrounds would have forged a relationship. They needed to connect with dialogue and Ms. Coppola's script does not convey any hint of why they would be attracted to each other.
The film reverts to so many scenes of nighttime Tokyo, this viewer wasn't sure if he was watching a feature film or a travelogue. Add the interminable party scenes and countless shots of characters fighting insomnia in their hotel rooms and one is left with a film that can best be termed "tedious."
Ms. Coppola has the funds and the backing to make a better movie than this. Unfortunately, "Lost In Translation" is an amateurish effort. Only the cinematography and the excellent performances of the lead characters elevates this above someone's senior project at the NYU film school.