Lost in Translation (2003, written and directed by Sofia Coppola) has an outstanding performance by Bill Murray and some interesting Tokyo locations. In that Murray would seem to have some personal insights into being a movie star in an alien location and of male midlife crises that the young and female writer/director don't and the lack of development of any of the other characters, I have to wonder how much of what stands out was in Coppola's script (for which she won an Oscar, the Writer's Guild Award, and other awards), how much was breathed into it by the movie's star. I am not at all convinced that there was good writing, let alone the year's best. (Or the best in recent movies starring Bill Murray!)
The look of a colorful (post)modern city shot (sometimes with gratuitously shaky hand-held cameras) by Lance Acord seems to me to owe something to "Blow-Up," although the movie within a movie is "La Dolce Vita." Bob Harris (Bill Murray) the actor being paid two million dollars for Suntori whiskey commercials has more the passivity of Mastroianni in "La Dolce Vita" than the creative artist in crisis that Mastroianni played in "8 1/2"). I'd give the city second billing, though Scarlett Johansson's part (Charlotte) is underwritten, although it would seem to have offered the chance to contain some of Coppola's experiences as (1) a young woman, and (2), until the success of this movie, being perceived as an appendage of more famous male artists. (I do not mean that either Murray's interpretation or the stranded movie star character and improvised lines and bits of business or that the part of Charlotte that Coppola wrote are autobiographical, only that there are connections to their status and, if not Murray's and Coppola's own experience, observation of agemates of the same sex in similar positions.)
There is no plot beyond the inevitable (in movies) falling in love by the attractive young woman for the depressed older man/cocktail lounge lizard. The movie is not really character-driven, because the characters are clichés with the exception of the sadness and self-deprecation that Murray brings to his part.
The stereotyped Japanese people and gadgetry are there as comic relief in the background of a "Brief Encounter" on the road of not very happy lives of an aging man who wonders what he has done with his life and a young woman who doesn't know what to do with hers. Murray looms over the Japanese in the elevator (and also over Johansson), there is an excruciating amount of karaoke, shabu-shabu is incomprehensible to the Yale-educated Charlotte and the worldly movie star, and the movie takes cheap shots at Japanese hospitality and politeness along with the usual shocks of advanced hotel room technology. And, although Japanese generally believe their language is impossible for foreigners to learn, there are frequent long stretches of Japanese people expecting the Americans to understand Japanese.
If the movie had not been written and directed by a woman, the romance and the masseuse visit to Bob Harris's room would have been dismissed by more viewers as male fantasy (not least the nearly-transparent pink panties the skinny Johansson is often photographed wearing), and the chattering New Age blonde actress, Kelly (Anna Faris) as a misogynous caricature.
There are already 103 epinions about the movie, most very positive, and posted while the movie was in theatrical release. Before turning to the DVD, I want to refer those seeking more discussion of the movie itself to the 2-star reviews by JackSommersby and Captaind.
The DVD infuriated me and may have poisoned my viewing of the movie. It has trailers that do not permit being skipped to get to the disk's main menu (and selecting menu is also blocked). Even at 4 times the play speed, it takes nearly three minutes to get through this bottleneck. The movie would have tried my patience even without this, and not being able to turn off my DVD player and return to the movie after unglazing my eyes jettisons a major benefit of watching movies on DVD.
Another benefit of DVDs is the potential of added features. I have to admit that this DVD has those: not only a theatrical trailer and a music video, but deleted scenes and Bob Harris's whole tv appearancefrom which only brief excerpts were taken for the movie, a half-hour making-of the movie (on location in Tokyo that was struck by a typhoon, something of a leitmotif in Coppola family history?), and a joint interview in Rome of the mutual admiration society of the white-haired, white-bearded movie star and the toothy director. Their rooftop conversation (anyone else's questions were deleted) almost convinced me that the movie was better than I thought it was. The documentary is funnier and less predictable than the bittersweet romance in the movie between the jet-lagged Americans in a strange (to them) land. The DVD extras would have raised my rating from two stars to three, but their impact was negated by being forced to view (even if speeded-up) the opening advertisement(s), I ususally look at additional trailers included on DVDs, but when I choose to watch them, not when I'm ready to watch the movie (and especially not when I want to return to where I left off in watching the movie). I will be avoiding DVDs from Focus Entertainment, which I do not think was the intent of advertisting their other movies.
For alienation in high-tech Tokyo, I recommend Tokyo Eyes instead, and think that Bill Murray had better writing to work with in "Groundhog Day" and in "Rushmore."
Recommended:
No
Viewing Format: DVD Suitability For Children: Not suitable for Children of any age
Bob Harris (Bill Murray) and Charlotte (Scarlett Johansson) are two Americans in Tokyo. Bob is a movie star in town to shoot a whiskey commercial, whi...More at Buy.com
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