Scarlett Johansson.... Charlotte
Bill Murray.... Bob Harris
Giovanni Ribisi.... John
Anna Faris.... Kelly
Written and directed by Sofia Coppola.
More often than not, I do not like movies as much as other critics do. For instance, I liked American Splendor but it wasnt even close to the best film so far this year. This time I really agreed with most critics.
Besides The Matrix Reloaded, this is the best movie so far this year. It deserves Oscar nominations all around, and based on the other performances this year, the trophy for best actor belongs to Bill Murray. A lot of critics have said the same thing but they are saying that we have never seen Bill Murray like this before. This is true to an extent, he gives similar performances in Wes Andersons Rushmore and The Royal Tenenbaums, and they were both great performances. Bill Murray is a comic genius who has been in few great movies. Ghostbusters II really isnt something you would write home to mom about. The acting by both Bill Murray and Scarlett Johansson is phenomenal. You sit there and believe that all of this really is happening to them and feel their pain and their emotions unlike anything Ive seen in recent years.
The movie follows two people. One a movie star (Murray), doing a whiskey commercial in Japan as other movie stars do. The stars do this to protect their integrity from being hurt here in the states because, by their logic, being seen doing such degrading things makes us lose respect for them. Bob is just unhappy with how is life has turned out, you can tell that he wants to go back to exploring his talent and to be less of a sell out. By being in Japan he feels like a fish out of water but we get the sense that he feels the same when at home. He brings the movies only laughs by when he talks to the Japanese, because all Japanese switch Ls and Rs confused it gets hard to understand. He has a very funny encounter with a prostitute.
The other lead is Charlotte, who has come to Japan with her photographer husband John (Giovanni Ribisi). She is extremely bored when not with her husband and it gives her time to think about how to get her life back on track. She is a lost soul, unhappy that she cannot find what to do with her philosophy major from Yale. She feels lost in her relationship with her husband and feels that he doesnt understand her as she wishes he could. By being in this foreign place, it shows her pain even more and she needs someone who can help her.
The two meet in the bar of their hotel with friendly chit-chat that turns into a friendship. The go on nighttime adventures throughout Tokyo that help them get a better understanding of each other. They learn about each others lives and talk about their marital and life problems. The movie is romantic comedy without romance; it shows how troubled souls can help themselves through companionship.
Each person needs to be away from the American parts of themselves. Bobs wife sends him faxes, packages and calls him in Japan to talk about home decorating. She also likes to point to out how their kids miss him. Bill Murray shows this pain and it just makes your eyes tear up. Charlottes husband thinks she is pretentious and that everybody is below her. When they bump into a movie star friend of Johns (Anna Faris), we see that John prefers those who arent encumbered with intelligence.
The film is life-changing. After I saw this, I wanted to reunite with old friends and talk to them about how they are doing. With the movie not having any sex, you feel the love between these two and how t this experience changed their lives and that its something that they will not forget for the rest of their lives. We do not hear the last thing that Bob says to Charlotte and that leaves us wanting more and it shows us that we decide what they said and makes the ending whatever we want it to be. See Lost in Translation, and tell as many people as you can about this masterpiece.
