From: Blunderov (squooker@mweb.co.za)
Date: Sat Mar 20 2004 - 01:47:28 MST
[Blunderov] I am completely smitten with this movie! Comments?
Best Regards
Lost in Translation
Yoshio Sato/Focus Features
Scarlett Johansson and Bill Murray's sometimes tender, sometimes funny
relationship is at the heart of "Lost in Translation."
Starring Bill Murray and Scarlett Johansson.
Directed by Sofia Coppola.
1 hour, 42 minutes (R)
Grade: A-
The verdict: Lose yourself in this extraordinary movie.
By ELEANOR RINGEL GILLESPIE
The Atlanta Journal-Constitution
Sofia Coppola is definitely her famous father's daughter, but she
definitely doesn't make her father's films. Francis Ford Coppola's
movies tend toward the operatic -- big emotions, big characters, big
stories. Hers have the quality of a tone poem -- fragile, understated,
intimate.
Her astonishing second film, "Lost in Translation," is a wistfully
romantic duet for two lost souls at sea in the neon pandemonium of
Tokyo. Bob Harris (Bill Murray) is a major American movie star in town
to pick up a cool $2 million for sitting in a leather chair, wearing a
tuxedo, holding a glass of Suntory whiskey and uttering the immortal
line, "For relaxing times, it's Suntory time."
These are not relaxing times for Bob. His career is still viable -- he
gets recognized a lot and the fans' enthusiasm is genuine. Yet there's a
sense that his work and his interest in it peaked several years ago. He
has a family, but his 25-year-old marriage no longer holds his interest
either. His wife, represented by an exasperated voice on the phone, is
more concerned with redecorating her husband's study than she is in her
husband. She FedEx's carpet samples to him with the affectionate note,
"I like the burgundy. What do you think?"
Plus, Bob can't sleep.
So he spends time in the chicly dark rooftop bar in his sleekly
impersonal hotel. That's where he meets Charlotte (Scarlett Johansson).
She can't sleep either.
Charlotte is in Tokyo with her husband of two years, John (Giovanni
Ribisi), a celebrity photographer who's getting a little too comfortable
(for her) with the aimless chitchat and air-kiss energy of his subjects.
She's no longer sure whom she married. Neither is Bob. He's at one end
of that bewilderment and she's at the other, both sleepless yet
sleepwalking through life.
They wake each other up.
What follows is a non-affair to remember, which maintains a delicate
balance between friends, lovers and something ineffably greater than
either. They are made for each other in a million ways, with sex being
one of the lesser ones (though that tension is ever-present).
Their relationship -- sometimes tender, sometimes hilarious -- is the
heart and soul of the movie. Still, many of the film's funniest scenes
show them interacting with others. Murray's attempts to follow the
directions barked at him in Japanese by a Suntory photographer is a
comic masterpiece. He mimics various Rat Pack members, mining the subtle
differences between Frank Sinatra, Dean Martin and even Joey Bishop
(whom his hosts have never heard of).
Meanwhile, Charlotte endures the weirdness of John's übershallow
conversations with an essence-of-L.A. starlet (Anna Faris) who's
overseas on a promotional tour for her new movie.
These close encounters with kiss-ups and idiots, plus the raucous
cacophony of the city, are a jarring contrast to the whispered yet
trenchant connection between Bob and Charlotte. The movie seems paced to
Murray's famous deadpan, stronger on atmosphere and character than it is
on story. Rather than moving in a straightforward manner, it's full of
odd side trips: Bob at a strip club, saying thank you to a
contortionist's inner thighs as he leaves (she's standing on her head);
Charlotte soaking up the arcane and adrenalized artistry of a Tokyo
games arcade.
This is Johansson's breakthrough role. She's been sensational in movies
like "Ghost World" and "The Man Who Wasn't There," but here we discover
her distinctiveness -- her still-evolving creamy beauty and her
clear-eyed simplicity. There's a freshness in her uncluttered approach
to acting.
Still, the movie belongs to Murray. Coppola wrote the role for him and
spent five months talking him into doing it. The patented smart-aleck
persona that made him a box-office megastar in movies like
"Ghostbusters" and "Caddyshack" has acquired the patina of middle age.
The supreme ironist now recognizes the innate irony of youthful
cynicism. He can still do more with a raised eyebrow than anyone since
Groucho Marx, but he's mellower and sometimes slightly poignant. He's
gentle with Charlotte, even courtly. In a sense, he's an emblem of a
generation of middle-aged anti-establishment hipsters, grown older and
somehow, almost in spite of itself, wiser.
This is a great performance, worthy not only of an Oscar nomination but,
at this point in the year, of the prize itself.
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