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Middle-aged actor Bob Harris (Bill Murray) jokes
around on a Japanese TV show in Lost in Translation.
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Director Sofia Coppola's sophomore effort, Lost in Translation, starring Bill Murray as middle-aged actor Bob Harris who befriends a young woman, Charlotte (Scarlett Johansson), in Tokyo, is one of the best films of this or any year.
Lost in Translation arrives riding a wave of international acclaim, but it still meets all expectations. In fact, it's richer each time I watch it, and that's a rare quality among movies.
Soon after landing in Tokyo, Harris looks out a car window at the city's neon lights and sees one of his billboard ads promoting Suntory Whiskey. It's why he's in town -- to film a new Suntory TV commercial for the astronomical fee of $2 million.
Harris' room at the towering Park Hyatt Hotel offers every imaginable luxury except the one thing he wants: sleep. The room's fax machine spits out messages from his wife in the middle of the night. His jet-lagged body is out of sync with the people around him.
Harris wanders through the hotel's rooftop pool and spacious cabaret bar. He listens to a female singer perform the Simon & Garfunkel song, "Scarborough Fair," and catches the eye of Charlotte, who's staying at the hotel with her photographer husband, John (Giovanni Ribisi). Her relationship with her busy husband is comprised of short sound bytes and schedule making. After he leaves for an out-of-town photo shoot, she is desperate for company. Harris is a kindred spirit.
The mismatched couple connects through their loneliness, and it's not long before Charlotte leads Harris on a tour of Japanese pop culture. Their night on the town takes them to noisy arcade parlors filled with buzzes and whirs and stylish nightclubs where large metallic balloons hover over the dance floor. Harris wears an orange camouflage T-shirt that's too small for his belly. Charlotte dons lip-gloss and a pink wig. Side-by-side, they make a wonderful, colorful pair.
Harris and Charlotte are innocent, kindred spirits united by their status as strangers in a strange land. Late into their all-night adventure, Harris sings a scratchy karaoke rendition of the Elvis Costello song "(What's So Funny 'Bout) Peace, Love and Understanding" and a heartfelt version of Roxy Music's "More Than This." The moment is emotionally dead-on, heartfelt and sweet.
Coppola makes perfect use of Murray; a sad-sack clown who's often 10 times better than the comedy blockbusters he appears in. The result is his best performance since Wes Anderson's 1998 comedy, Rushmore.
Murray is expectably droll as Harris; yet, there is something heartfelt behind his sarcastic wit. He's emotionally soft, almost childlike, a mischief maker with no specific plans other than earning lots of money for a job he doesn't want to do.
"For relaxing times, make it Suntory time," Harris says with feigned enthusiasm, facing the camera, holding a tumbler of tea that's a replacement for real whiskey. As is often the case, Murray gives a physical performance, a precise series of smirks and condescending stares accentuated by a slumping, pudgy body too tired to fight the goofiness surrounding him. Harris yells for help after he's stuck on a whirling exercise machine. In one of the film's best moments, his suit is pinned tightly across his back so it won't wrinkle during the commercial taping. The point is that everything Harris touches turns sloppy, and that's part of Murray's charm.
Johansson is the first person who appears in Lost in Translation, although you don't know it because the up-close image is of pink sheer panties wrapped snugly around her full-moon butt. Unbelievable as it might seem, the scene is delicate, possessing a woman's touch that reflects the aching-for-love spirit Coppola brings to the film. Charlotte wears pink panties and opens bottles of expensive champagne because she wants to be with her husband, and she can't understand why he constantly places more priority on his work.
Johansson is handed the more difficult task in Lost in Translation; playing the straight person, the second banana to Murray's lovable man-in-crisis. She plays the role subtly direct, displaying a melancholy personality that's honest.
"You're probably just having a midlife crisis," Charlotte tells Bob, during one of their late-night talks at the hotel bar. "Did you buy your Porsche yet?"
Anna Faris, best known for her appearances in the Scary Movie comedies, adds comic support as a bubble-headed celebrity actress in Tokyo to promote her latest blockbuster. Faris is a raucous parody of actress Brittany Murphy, which I think is intentional.
Giovanni Ribisi plays Charlotte's absentee husband with the perfect degree of slightness. The most caring words he shares with his young wife are these: "Would you please stop smoking? It's so bad for you."
Tokyo, its people and its places, plays as much a role in the film as Murray and Johansson. Coppola, cinematographer Lance Acord and production designers Anne Ross and K.K. Barrett capture the Japanese megalopolis beautifully.
In the eyes of Charlotte and Harris, Tokyo is a city of lights, garish bursts of bright color and gigantic billboards boasting computer graphics. Tokyo's lights are less poetic than the city lights of Paris, but Coppola convinces us that they're just as spectacular.
If a director were to have one goal for her sophomore effort, it should be to make a movie distinct from her debut. The Virgin Suicides, Coppola's rich 2000 adaptation of the Jeffrey Eugenides novel about the distraught lives of five teenage sisters, continues to resonate powerfully. Yet, I'm impressed more by Lost in Translation; its grasp of unrequited romance and modernity; its sense of epic scale and Coppola's ability to place an intimate human story delicately in the center of it all.
While I enjoy the film's tranquil moments, especially Charlotte's visit to a Kyoto temple, Lost in Translation is undoubtedly a physical comedy, no less clownish than Jacques Tati's Monsieur Hulot comedies. There are sight gags and physical slapstick jokes aplenty. Granted, Lost in Translation is deceiving for audiences who have grown accustomed to the sex gags from the American Pie films and the childish stunts from David Spade comedies. Coppola unashamedly wraps her jokes in heartfelt sentiment, passionate romance and rich characters.
The climax in Lost in Translation is as emotional as the final moments in a classic movie romance like Love Affair, showing a brief relationship that's powerful and meaningful enough to change lives. In a nod to her thirtysomething youth, Coppola boosts the scene with the '80s Alternative Pop song, "Just Like Honey," by The Jesus and Mary Chain.
In this whispery, perfectly ambiguous moment, Coppola displays the secret behind her film's transcendence. Lost in Translation is mature, yet childlike, funny and heart-wrenching. The key is that Coppola takes Murray's gags seriously. Lost in Translation is a clownish comedy with substance, and I can't remember the last time I watched movie slapstick with so much heart.
Grade: A+
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