Superbly constructed (and you can see the seams)

Rating: 7/10 (4 October 2003)

I came in with misgivings, having admired the craft but not enjoyed the Virgin Suicides. Quite and silence are used in film to add gravity to scenes (we're so used to constant soundtracks in American films), and I thought there was a lot of ill earned gravity to that movie. and honestly accounting for that, I still dislike Lost in Translation ... the entire first half consisted of one cheap shot after another to build up two characters who in the end I tolerate but generally think of arrogant tourists. Actually, I actively dislike the girl at the end. I understand that it was meant to show culture clash, the we're so lost and how do you reach out ... but with such a mean spirit that I couldn't help but think that of the shallow, low side of the characters. Nor did was it an elevation of what is basically a normal, common feeling for many of us. The culture clashes were so constructed as primarily sight gags, or reaction shots, or god forbid the japanese mispronouncing english...in Japan? It was a spirit that permeated the film, especially including the poor little rich girl actress. Sure its funny, the Bill Murray and Scarlett Johannson (who did fine) are our surrogates, and they built entirely at the expense of the ill-conceived characters, who are merely more "the world is crazy and crude and we're lost" props for the leads.
The second half was better, more even, even if the good things about Japan that they like are a very hip, elitist selection anyway. Had the first half been more tonally even, I think I would have enjoyed it much more. But by then I wanted the well made, well acted, pretty movie to end. Everyone was very good. The script was very constructed, every other character astonishingly poor. Like Storytelling, well sure I don't like those people. You wrote them that way.
Happy Together reminds me of a lost in foreign country movie that wasn't so mean. Being lost shouldn't be a feeling that requires insults, like Coppola's shots w/o people. Simlarily, there are quiet banal moments we're just supposed to gauzily watch. I say we're suppose to feel a bit of their existential ennui. And I don't. Its the same thing as

mumbling the last words, and not giving it to the audience- cheap shot. Scenes that add the appearance of depth, but completely artificially.