Lost in Translation
By Spencer W., El Dorado, KS
Discovering our innermost self and enduring the rigorous but righteous compliance with it is perhaps our greatest and most treacherous task in life. It is an unending quest that never leaves clues to the past and certainly refuses to share omens of the future. In "Lost in Translation," Sofia Coppola's ("Virgin Suicides") second film, two wayward Americans in Tokyo, Japan fatefully find and save each other from the deepest and darkest of woods.
Bob (Bill Murray) is a respectable, successful actor who has confined himself to an awkward and irritating trip to Japan because of the big money he can make as a shameful commercial actor. In perfect contrast, Charlotte (Scarlett Johansson) is a young married woman who languishes through long, listless days in her hotel room as over and over she's allowed one and only one surprise per day: the unbecoming homecoming of her photographer husband (Giovanni Ribisi). While Charlotte lives in shame of her shiftless, monotonous life, Bob staggers, with half his head turned backwards, through everything he does.
The two meet just as the estrangement from their spouses heightens, and they quickly bond. These two hitherto lifeless, lost people find a connection and dialogue like none we've seen in them before. Talking and sorting through all the fuzz they would usually fret and trip over, the two realize that they are content with themselves but discontent with their circumstances. Shining through every scene and sentence is an appropriate and awfully painful comic element.
Bill Murray is as hilarious as ever with this frank, natural performance. Scarlett Johansson is equally entertaining and stunning as she excels in her first comedic performance.
Sofia Coppola, who both wrote and directed the movie, does an excellent job of framing each scene and presenting it with an unbiased mix of collected yet funky and original direction. The movie is hilarious and heart-warming - a definite must-see. .
This movie is rated R.
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