Lost In Tranquility!

Rating: Null/10 (30 August 2004)

AH, how utterly refreshing. A heart felt, true-to-life film with believable dialogue and characters. No sex, no violence, and unfortunately - NO story. Simple, Bill Murray and Scarlett Johanssen are very good as middle-aged man and young supportive wife who discover each other in Tokyo as each are there for different reasons (no reason to explain). Each is healthy and thriving, but they are missing certain elements in life that eludes any true happiness. The film is well made, well acted, and the Tokyo setting is quite intriguing, but this fim is about as interesting as taking your dog for a walk, or listening to 2 people talk in a bar, without any involvement yourself. I wouldn't call it boring necessarily, just uninvolving. Plenty of scene cuts with fade-outs leaves you wondering why we just saw Bill Murray wake up in the morning and scratch his !%&%@! And then cut to Scarlett sitting at the window of her hotel room then of course, back to the fade-out. The viewer isn't necessarily waiting for a shot gun blast or Murray to bed her, but we don't even get any heart-felt dialogue, nothing. Lost In Translation cannot be recommended, although a wonderful and sincere ending which actually tugged at my innards that cut about one-third of watching the paint dry away. This and the pros mentioned simply can't outway the major con here, 90 minutes of zilch. 5.5/10.