A quietly beautiful film.

Rating: 10/10 (18 November 2003)

What would you do if you met your soulmate after 25 years of marriage to someone else? What could you do? After a quarter of a century of commitment, including children, to one person, how do you even admit to yourself that you've just found your ideal companion, especially when that person is married as well? This is the dilemma with which Bob Harris (Bill Murray) finds himself faced in Sofia Coppola's LOST IN TRANSLATION. Oh, did I also mention he's stuck in a country whose language and culture he doesn't begin to understand? Murray's performance is excellent, his best work in years. The lines of age in his face and his subtle, toned-down gestures and expressions erase the Bill Murray we all thought we knew, leaving only Bob Harris. This is not to say that the role is humorless ---- far from it. But it is a deadpan, morose kind of humor, the humor of a man who makes another person smile to keep from crying himself. When Bob and Charlotte (Scarlett Johansen) meet and begin getting to know each other, they speak often of Bob's "mid-life crisis", but this is in no way the story of a middle-aged man's desperate, self-destructive infatuation with a much younger woman. This is the tender, unspoken romance of two beautiful misfits kept apart by self-defeating fidelities and the prejudices of time. What would have happened had Bob and Charlotte been the same age and unmarried when they met? Certainly something wonderful to experience but, in terms of the film, much less poignant and interesting to watch. It is the looks of longing between Bob and Charlotte, the aforementioned subtle gestures of Bob, that make this film such a sad and beautiful experience. It is the performances that immediately capture the viewer of this film, but never doubt that Sofia Coppola is a fine and wonderful filmmaker. She doesn't rely on any flashy camerawork or clever plot devices to tell her story, but don't be fooled by the film's minimalism; Coppola has written a profoundly beautiful script. The dialogue is sparse at times, but this only lends greater power to the words that are spoken. Murray has a line in this film that I may never forget: "The more you know who you are and what you want, the less you let things upset you." Simply put, but just ringing with universal truth and importance. LOST IN TRANSLATION is funny, sad, warm, irritating, fulfilling, thought-provoking, simple, tedious, surprising and beautiful, just like real life. I strongly recommend it to anyone who has ever felt alive or, more importantly, wanted to.