This movie is the current “it” thing to see among the “in” crowd (the artsy type people, the ones that think they create all the “Oscar buzz”). It got my attention because I read it was “so unique”, and quite frankly, I needed a break after a few bad movies in a row. So I went in with some hopes.
Bill Murray takes the role of a guy named Bob Harris. Bob was once a big movie star, but is now reduced to filming liquor commercials in Japan. He heads over to Tokyo to do just that and right from the opening moments, we can see what a sad sack he is.
While Bill Murray off the screen comes off like a fun loving, silly guy, he can play the depressed guy too. And Bob Harris has reached a point in his life where he can’t figure out what matters, and, if anything matters, what if it did? He has a wife of twenty-five years and, apparently, a couple of young kids, but that isn’t enough anymore. His movie career put him on the road so long, he has almost no relationship with his family. Now, he’s a stranger in a strange land and things have really hit bottom.
That is until he meets Charlotte, played by Scarlett Johansson. She’s only in her mid-twenties, but she’s also stuck in Tokyo with a husband who is so involved with his photography career, he seems to have no time for her. Bob and Charlotte strike up a pretty weird friendship, based mostly on the fact that they are both miserable and lonely. It’s not sexual, it’s not father-daughter, it’s more like a two person support group for the emotionally detached.
I’ll warn you now, not a lot “happens” in this movie. In fact, not even much is said. There are many scenes showing Bob sitting on his bed watching TV and looking plenty bored. Or, Charlotte riding on a train staring out the window at the Japanese countryside. Now, I’m not so artistically inept that I can’t absorb the power of those scenes, because you can read much into a person without having them say everything they feel. But after a while, I grew restless. Charlotte and Bob aren’t in that many scenes together, and much of the rest of the film is an attempt at humor centering on Bob’s trying to comprehend the Japanese culture and language.
One scene will help me explain – Bob is on the set of his liquor commercial and the director is mouthing off rapid fire concerning his vision of what they are to accomplish. Of course, he is speaking Japanese. Bob’s interpreter, however, translates everything the guy says into maybe five words. So you hear this passionate speech that sounds like John Belushi in old Saturday Night Live Samuri swordsman skit, and then you have the lady telling Bob that “he wants you to turn right”. Yes, funny the first and second time, but I kid you not - this went on for over ten minutes.
At least Director Sophia Coppola (yes, Francis Ford’s daughter) didn’t portray the Japanese as emotionless robots. They are alive with clownish character, from the bowing and overly gracious hotel staff, to the wacky hooker, to the off-the wall TV talk show host who makes Richard Simmons look manly.
Having said all that, the movie really has to rely on Bob and Charlotte and because it was shot with so much style in mind, I grew frustrated. It started to resemble one long music video, short on dialogue, long on scenery. In fact, at times, you can’t even hear the people speak. They whisper or are drowned out by music and traffic. That’s not for my tastes. But Bill Murray and Scarlett Johansson sure give it all they have and for that I’ll give “Lost In Translation” a “7.0” on the scale.
