LOST IN TRANSLATION (2003)
Focus Features

By Désirée I. Guzzetta

Lost In Translation is a superb film from director/writer Sofia Coppola that boasts fine performances from Bill Murray and Scarlet Johansson as characters whose paths cross in Tokyo, a city so neon wonderful it makes Las Vegas look podunk.

Murray plays Bob Harris, an aging Hollywood star who has come to Japan for a week to make serious money doing whiskey commercials. Johansson plays Charlotte, who is married to hotshot photographer John (Giovanni Ribisi). Both are staying at the same hotel and strike up a friendship after seeing other in the elevator and then again at the hotel bar.

This is more than a fish-out-of-water story, as Charlotte and Bob are lost, not just in relation to being Americans in a foreign culture, but within their own lives. Bob’s wife (heard only off-screen) faxes and FedExes him with sarcastic and occasionally self-pitying messages about how he is missing his kid’s birthday or how she has to make all the decisions about renovating their house while he is gone—she goes so far as to mail him carpet samples to peruse, and her faxes generally come in the middle of the night Tokyo-time, which doesn’t help Bob overcome his wicked case of jet lag.

Charlotte can’t sleep well either, but for a different reason. John has no problem sleeping after going out and working all day, leaving her alone not only when he’s not there, but when he is. This makes her restive, and nothing seems to rouse her out of it, not even visiting some of the most beautiful and spiritual places in Japan. Until she meets Bob, who draws her out of her depressive reverie while she awakens in him a liveliness he'd left behind years ago.

One of my favorite things in this film is the nature of Bob and Charlotte's friendship, in that it is a friendship, not a romance (though the two seem to feel romantically toward each other). The much-older and wiser Bob recognizes Charlotte's fragility as well as his own and doesn't take advantage of both of their confusion, though he's not above stepping out on his wife with the hotel bar's singer, which inflames Charlotte's jealousy. That they can feel this way about each other and not have sex is thanks to the smartness of Coppola's script and her security in choosing to show there are more facets to the male-female relationship that can be shown onscreen.

Coppola adds a lot of nice ambiguous touches to the film as well; for instance, it’s hinted that John may be cheating (or already has cheated) on Charlotte, but then again, he could just be a flaky photographer who gets lost in his frenetic career. The rhythm of the film at times matches the jet lag Bob feels and the restlessness of Charlotte, fully immersing the audience in the world of the two characters, a world disrupted by seeing the way Western culture is filtered and regurgitated by the Japanese, not to mention trying to understand Japanese culture in and of itself. To Coppola’s credit, the culture clash is handled sensitively and realistically, and those who are trying to paint the film as racist have completely missed the point (not to mention "All your base are belong to us"). There’s also the matter of what Bob whispers to Charlotte at their last meeting; we’re not privy to the words, but we can guess at the content by the expressions on both character’s faces as they say goodbye.

Murray is hilarious as Bob, and Johansson is luminous as Charlotte, with both actors bringing a depth and poignancy to their characters that makes even watching them sit around or try to fall asleep worth every second.

Official site: http://www.lost-in-translation.com/

Focus Features
Director/Screenwriter: Sofia Coppola
Starring: Bill Murray (Bob Harris), Scarlett Johansson (Charlotte), Giovanni Ribisi (John)
Running Time: 1 hour, 42 minutes
Rated: R

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