MOVIE REVIEW

Lost in Translation  (2003)

Starring: Bill Murray, Scarlett Johansson, Giovanni Ribisi
Directors: Sofia Coppola

Rating: R

Studio: Focus Features

Release Date: 9.12.03

Review Posted: 9.12.03

Spoilers: Minor

By Sara Michelle Fetters

Brilliance of Murray in No Need of "Translation"

In 1999, Sofia Coppola wowed the filmmaking world with her devastating “The Virgin Suicides.” Poetic, dreamy and so light it almost seemed to float on air, the film cleverly masked a dark and stormy subtext by hiding it underneath the winning smiles of a flock of beautiful girls. It was a sublimely affecting picture, one that cemented the daughter of directing royalty as a talent worth keeping an eye on.

It’s taken four years for Coppola to write and direct her latest opus “Lost in Translation.” So much time, that I almost forgot she was out there harboring a great moviemaking talent. No matter, for the film starring Bill Murray and Scarlett Johansson was well worth the wait. And while “Lost in Translation” may just miss brilliance, it’s still a mighty fine motion picture to be sure.

Murray stars as aging movie star Bob Harris. Under the lure of a two million-dollar payday, he’s come to Japan to film a series of whiskey commercials. But Bob finds the whole scene just a wee bit oppressive and would rather be back in the states performing for peanuts in an independent theatrical production, not to mention being able to attend his kid’s birthday. Instead he’s here, fighting off jet lag and trying to swim through cultural mores he can’t make heads or tails out of.

Enter Charlotte (Johansson), a young newlywed stuck in her hotel room while her professional photographer husband, John (Giovanni Ribisi, “Basic,” “The Gift”), spends his days and nights hobnobbing with local rock stars. At her breaking point, Charlotte is lost and not too sure this whole marriage thing was a good idea. Wandering the hotel and the local countryside, she looks for anything that might spark her interest – or at least keep her from boredom – counting the days until she can hopefully figure out if a life with John is really what she’s meant for.

At first, the duo dance a waltz of sideways glances and friendly smiles from across the hotel’s smoky jazz bar, their eyes telling one another all they really need to know about how they’re feeling. Soon, a shared drink and a small modicum a conversation gently morph into a full-fledged friendship, both introducing the other to pieces of life they might never have had the opportunity to experience if not for this meeting.

Not so much a May/December love story – although by the end I was positive both felt genuine emotion in regards to the other – “Lost in Translation” is instead a lyrical journey into culture and companionship. It’s a story about souls, if not lost, certainly making the trek to getting there. Yet, trapped in a strange country filled with sights and sounds that at once inspire, impress and inexplicably mystify, each finds solace in the gentle care of the other. It is as if both are missing elements of their own humanity, one complementing the other by being able to help heal those lost portions.

A beautiful movie on many levels, “Lost in Translation” is blessed with another of Murray’s ever-increasing selflessly beautiful performances. A solid actor for his entire career, it seems as if the maturing comic has only ripened over the years. Since his splendidly loony and touching turn in “Groundhog Day” to his Oscar-worthy work in “Rushmore,” the former “Meatballs” headliner has consistently impressed and caries Coppola’s film from start to finish. One of the cinema’s purest joys is to watch Murray revel in a role on-screen, and that certainly on display here.

Whether on the phone speaking with his wife about carpet samples and household maintenance, the zest for life slowly draining from his features; to a surreal moment in a sleazy downtown strip club, the girls sliding their way all over him desperately in search for this droopy dog to give them a tip, Murray is a wonder. Coppola requires him to be in nearly every scene, the audience being propelled right along with him on his evermore-fantastic adventure.

For me, the movie’s best moments revel in the actor’s rabid wit and acerbic facial acrobatics, none more so insanely funny and devastating as his battle of wills with an obnoxious commercial director. Trying desperately to follow the man’s ever-increasingly oblique instructions, Murray flows from deranged madman to exasperated professional and then back again in nothing flat. I really felt his pain, vexation and, finally, a strange delirious whimsy at having to endure such an infuriatingly incompetent filmmaker. It’s a masterful display and a moment that ranks up there as one of the best put on screen this year.

The talented Johansson doesn’t fare quite as well. The gifted star of “Ghost World” and “The Horse Whisperer” is definitely one of the best young actresses of her generation, yet she never quite connects the way I kept feeling like she should. While her moments with Murray are quite fine, I never got a good enough grasp of Charlotte to care about whatever troubles she felt she was going through. Her character is so thin, so sketchily written by Coppola, that I couldn’t get a grasp on her. Generous portions of the film are spent following her around Japan; from inner-city gaming establishments to countryside Buddhist monasteries; that “Lost in Translation” comes perilously close to becoming more an avant-garde travelogue than a character-driven dramatic-comedy.

Still, there is an ethereal beauty to her that is beyond enchanting, and the delicate actress and Murray do share a startlingly gruff chemistry that speaks volumes to the duo’s fractured souls. While, after a time, Coppola’s penchant for descending into esoteric meandering start to make sense; the movie floating between moments like a feather caught between divergent gentle gusts of wind. She packs the film with moments that linger in memory for days on end. From Anna Farris (“May”) as a seminally conceited actress obnoxiously snorting out karaoke songs to a stunned audience, to Murray lazily languishing in a sauna stuck in a soul-sucking conversation he can’t get seem to end, Coppola handles these scenes and more with maturity and intelligence hard-pressed to be found onscreen anymore.

But, in the end, “Lost in Translation” is Murray’s playground. From a final moment of touching humanity to outbursts of surreal conviviality, the actor is working on all cylinders and it is a pure joy to watch him jive. In a career of performances worthy of distinction, this one just might be the comic’s best.

Rating: êêê   (out of 4)

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