LOST IN TRANSLATION (2003)
Reviewed by Jerry Saravia
(Originally reviewed in 2003)
Bill Murray is an actor, even if you think he hasn't proven it yet. His trick is one that comes from all great actors - he never lets you know he is acting. Others may say Murray is only playing himself, but being yourself is not easy either. In "Lost in Translation," Murray has one of the best roles of his career, playing and defining a character so perfectly that you might forget Murray is acting at all. Akin, though less emotional, to Jack Nicholson's own weary-brand-of-loneliness character in "About Schmidt," Murray has a role that is easily the life force of the movie.
Murray is Bob Harris, a famous actor who's being paid millions to do a whisky commercial in Tokyo. He'd rather be doing a play but the money is good, and he does have a family to support back in California. The problem is Bob is not sure where he should be. When he isn't acting or taking incomprehensible directions from a Japanese director, he is in his hotel room watching TV, sometimes clips from some of his early movies. Sometimes a hooker is sent to his room and asks him to rip his stocking, though it sounds like lip. Other times, when he can't sleep, he is drinking at the hotel bar. And when he is relaxing in a pool or in bed, his wife calls asking what color the carpet fabric should be in his study.
One day, however, he meets an angel of wonderment, a miracle that could change his life. Her name is Charlotte (Scarlet Johansson), a twentysomething girl who is married to a photographer (Giovanni Ribisi) and doesn't know why. As she exclaims in a phone conversation about her wedding, "I felt nothing." Her husband is always on shoots, never in the room with her (and he snores loudly too). Charlotte is forced to fend for herself, parading around the streets of Tokyo shopping and looking, perhaps looking to be engaged by something. Sometimes she frequents the hotel bar, and that is where she meets Bob. The two have a huge age difference but that doesn't stop them from sharing stories and anecdotes. They go shopping together, walk around the streets, sing karaoke, and eventually end up in the same room together. Don't raise your eyebrows just yet, though, because writer-director Sofia Coppola is more interested in their personalities and their quirks than seeing them making love. Why the director felt obliged to show Charlotte's posterior in close-up in the opening shot remains a mystery, but this is still no ordinary romance.
My issue with romances like this is when we learn about the prospective others, the people whom the newly loving couple are married to. Charlotte's own husband seems to either deliberately ignore or is blissfully unaware of his wife. Since his character is shown to be more edgy or anxious than expected, we quickly think he is wrong for her. But tell me how any man could be blissfully unaware of someone like Charlotte? And Bob's wife? We just hear her voice on the phone, saying everything and telling us nothing. She doesn't admit her love for him, and seems almost pained to hear he has a day off from shooting a commercial. It is simply too easy and lazy for the screenwriter to assume that people often use the cliches we expect to hear so we can admonish them and root for the real couple to be together. "Sleepless in Seattle" has this annoying screenwriting problem, among countless other romantic comedies.
Where Coppola proves her worth is in the visuals. This is a kinetically framed romance, often filmed with a hand-held camera and with a lens that shows us a soft-focus world of Tokyo - the movie has the effect of looking through a fog. What it lends is an intimacy that makes the love story almost a documentary of how two different people can meet accidentally. All I can say is that, like cinematic love stories that make Paris look inviting, I would love to visit Tokyo based on what I saw in this movie. We feel like tourists in a strange land, just like Bob and Charlotte.
Bill Murray has a role that defines what he can bring to the screen better than anybody - laziness and lethargy crossed with humor. It is almost like Murray sort of enjoys the lethargy, in a strange way, and he has never played as full-bodied a character as Bob. Those droopy eyes and thin lips make Bob as sad and funny as we can expect Murray to be. Along with his colorful supporting roles in "Rushmore" and "Ed Wood," Murray is as exquisite and as restrained as one can expect - he could make Robin Williams blush on a "Good Will Hunting" day.
Scarlett Johansson also has pizzazz, delivered in a low-key manner. She is sad and funny too, but we sense that she would rather be with someone like Bob who understands her loneliness. Johansson makes the character so endearing and so real that I'd be surprised if there wasn't any man who would fall in love with her on first sight. That dreamy, low-toned voice certainly helps.
The last sequence of "Lost in Translation" doesn't end with the typical happy ending, a requirement of this virtually exhausted genre. Coppola has invested too much in these characters to make easy solutions come to surface. With Bob's own lackadaisical energy and Charlotte's own lost sense of self, they are like lonely lovebirds singing the hymns of lost romantic souls. They search for something, only to find each other and discover there is more to learn about love. It is a romantic notion but Murray, Johansson and Coppola make it come alive in a melancholy way. A sweet film.
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