Good, not great

Rating: 7/10 (9 October 2003)

This is a good film, but the overall rating seems too high. As in Virgin Suicides, Sofia Coppola in Lost in Translation is able to render an atmosphere, a scene, with great mastery. As in the earlier movie, though, the characters here remain distant and their motivation vague. One does not empathize with the two main characters; one simply observes them.
I would like for Bill Murray to win an Oscar for a dramatic (or comedy) role, but I don't think this is the one. His comic scenes, particularly the shooting of the whiskey commercial, are classic Bill Murray, drole and very funny. However, his rendition of a burned-out actor in midlife crisis, like Jack Nicholson's performance in About Schmidt, substitutes simple passivity for any sort of deeper emotions.
There are also some troubling anomalies in the storyline. Why do Bill Murray and his wife have such young kids after 25 years of marriage? Time zones seem confused when he calls his wife at 4 a.m. Tokyo time and reaches her at breakfast.