A constant stream of awkward moments

Rating: 4/10 (7 August 2018)

In a motion picture like Lost in Translation, the bonding and relatability of the characters have an even more important emphasis than they usually do. Unfortunately the relatability is something that is completely devoid in Lost in Translation.
The acting in the entire picture is mediocre, and this is combined with an average screenplay that consists of mostly 'Hey dude' or 'You know' juvenile kind of dialogue. This is excluding Bill Murray as Bob Harris, who was pretty much the only actor in the film able to perform on a decent level, as he captured the emptiness of his character perfectly due to many of his fantastic cynical takes on his commercial scenes. The cinematography has some great shots, such as the golf course which shows the audience a great level of depth & a couple of outside the car window shots which show our protagonist's face with the mirror image of urban Japan reflected in it. However, there are also multiple weird behind the shoulder low camera angles which make it seem like more of a documentary instead of a motion picture, & Sofia Copolla doesn't seem very fluent in the technicality of the camera movements, as many of the camera movements are jumping all over the place. Copolla also shows us a lot of shots in public occasions while focusing on people nobody knows and nobody cares about while music is playing. While this is presumably done to show us that Murray & Scarlett Johansson's character Charlotte do not belong in this world, the immersion into their characters is severely decreased since because of this since the focus is seldom actually on both of them alone.
Lost in Translation's strength is from its silent parts, the slow walks around the city or Charlotte's walk around the temple. As soon as people open their mouths ( Except for Murray ) the quality significantly decreases. Giovanni Ribisi and Anna Faris in particular are extremely cringeworthy in their acting, and their line delivery will embarrass you all the way through. Scarlett Johansson seems to be on the level of Kristen Stewart in showing emotional range because her facial expression never seems to really change during the course of the film. Her weird quirky kind of slightly smiling facial expression is all we see the entire film. She frequently uses 'uuuhmmm' to open a sentence & seems extremely insecure about her qualities on screen. A bond with Johansson's character can therefore never really be formed, since she cannot show any kind of human emotion that will make me really believe that she is in the situation that her character is in. ( There was also an obligatory phone call with her sister in which she starts crying due to her alienation to society & her husband, but Johansson's performance here also lacks any kind of emotional depth )
In the end the relationship between Murray & Johansson seems forced and unreal because of this, and although the scenes before their meeting are a wonderful showing of how distant they seem to be from the world they live in, the mediocrity of its script & Johansson's sub par acting destroy any illusion the audience might have that this relationship could be real.
As the title suggests, it is also a neverending stream of cringeworthy scenes. While this is ofcourse partly a deliberate move by Copolla since it wants to show us how alienated its characters are, but the constant stream of cringe this picture has become is overdoing it a bit. Many of Johansson's line deliveries are extremely cringeworthy, Murray's commercials are also extremely cringeworthy and will leave the audience embarrassed. A couple of their scenes together such as the one where he reluctantly kisses her in the elevator are also extreme cringe. Because of the plain absurdity of its awkwardness, Lost in Translation does indeed also become quite ridiculous.
Lost in Translation has a great Bill Murray performance, some great shots in its cinematography, but it also has extremely weak supporting performances, many absurdly awkward scenes and a mediocre script with not much important dialogue or the building of a narrative, eventually resulting in a disappointment.