A film about what matters most...

Rating: 10/10 (10 January 2004)

You know that feeling when you've met someone, maybe in a place far from home, and you've gotten along well, exchanging small talk and laughing a bit together, and you've reached the point where you've run out of meaningless things to say? You're at the point where you either say goodbye, and wander off in search of more forgettable pleasantry, or you take the chance to say what's really on your mind and to give another person a chance to know who you really are. "Lost in Translation" is a movie about two people who reach that place in their ongoing conversation, and decide to take the chance. It isn't a romance, at least not in the traditional sense-- these two people don't simply need someone to love, they need someone to remind them why they get up every morning. It's one of the most humane, genuinely good-hearted films I can recall watching, and at the risk of imitating earlier comments and reviews of this movie, I think it's one of the best films in recent years.
It doesn't have "that scene"-- it's never flashy or obvious. Its single best moment comes when we don't know exactly what its lead characters are saying to each other. Its visual style is a sort of oddly placid bewilderment-- the movie does an excellent job of making you feel as if you're lost in a city where you don't understand anything. If you were there, maybe you'd be looking for someone who doesn't understand it either, but might understand you. I loved this movie, because I believed every second of it. Bill Murray has never been better in his life than he is in this film, playing an American movie star who's just a little too smart and a little too wise to be impressed with himself anymore, and he's matched note for note by Scarlett Johansson, as a young woman who hasn't found her place in the world yet but is pretty sure she's made a wrong turn somewhere. This is a movie about finding someone who'll listen to you, someone who doesn't know you well enough to know what it is you want to hear, but might tell you what you need to hear. In this movie, two people connect, if only for a little while, and it is a wonderful thing to experience with them.