Lost in Translation




"Okay, now explain what you were thinking when you signed up for Ghostbusters 2."

Lost in Translation (2003) is about two Americans in Tokyo who are alienated from everyone and everything around them. Bill Murray is playing an actor who hasn't had a hit movie in twenty years, but is still well known enough that he can make $2 million by promoting a Japanese whiskey. Scarlett Johansson is the wife of a photographer in Japan to do a shoot for rock band. Neither of them have much to do, but they find each other (they're staying at the same hotel) and rather pointedly don't have an affair. Directed by Sophia Coppola, Lost in Translation is quite similar to In the Mood for Love (2000), which was also about a man and a woman who don't have an affair. The main difference is that Mood's director, Wong Kar Wai, would have scored this material with a variety of music, from classical to bubble-gum pop, but Coppola relies on depression rock, that underachieving cousin to complaint rock. It's a compliment to Coppola that a movie with this little plot stays compelling, and a compliment to Bill Murray that he can make us laugh along with such a sad character.

Posted: Sun - February 8, 2004 at      

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