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Lost in Translation (2003)
This is a movie with some interesting thoughts and is both comedy and romance, without falling into the category of romantic comedy. It rises well above most such films in what it has to say about relationships. But it is far from a standard romance.
Bill Murray plays Bob Harris, an American movie star who has agreed to endorse a Japanese whiskey for the sum of $2 million. He has come to Japan specifically for photo shoots, making commercials and some personal appearances. In more general terms he has come to Japan to take a break from his life and his wife. Married 25 years, he has seemingly lost touch with why he is with this woman in the first place. Scarlett Johansson plays Charlotte, a young woman fresh out of college and newly married. She comes to Japan with her husband (Giovani Ribisi) who is a photographer and is doing photo shoots of a rock band there. She has nothing to do and thus wanders aimlessly, searching for something to occupy her time. In a grander sense she is also looking for her purpose in life and becoming rather depressed at not finding it.
The two come across each other in the hotel bar where slowly a friendship is struck. It develops into something more although it is difficult to define what. They don't fall into each others arms and they don't have sex. But they do form a relationship that would probably upset their spouses. In each other they find something that has been missing in their lives recently. They are a pair of insomniacs, suffering similar relationship problems at opposite ends of the spectrum. They develop a strong bond largely because they are strangers with similar problems. That unfamiliarity allows them to talk about things they couldn't with people they know well. They can talk in broad generalities without getting bogged down in details because the detals are irrelevant to each other.
The movie's title indicates that culture shock is a factor here. Murray plays straight man to the oddities of Tokyo and Japanese culture. This is where he shows off just how good he a comedic actor is because he plays it all so amazingly subtly. Murray finds ways to set the whole theater howling with laughter with just a raised eyebrow or a widening of the eyes. Watching his confusion at the large committee that greets him every day, the rantings of a director he can't understand, and a hotel room with a mind of its own is priceless. Not only is he brilliant in the comedic aspects of the film but he develops a far stronger character than we've seen from him before, with the possible exception of his work in Rushmore. Driven from home by a wife who is simultaneously over interested in decorating for Bob and wildly disinterested in him personally, he sulks in the hotel bar, drinking his $2 million whiskey and pondering where his life went. There is a certain tension to watching Murray, as we expect his trademark sarcasm but know that it is unwelcome here. That gives Bob a timebomb feel as we wonder just what is keeping him from suddenly veering down the wrong path.
While there is much to love in this movie, I can't quite love it completely and I lump a lot of the blame on the Charlotte character and Ms. Johansson. There are many, many scenes of Charlotte moping. She mopes in her hotel room over and over again and then for a change of pace, wanders the city moping. Then she visits temples to mope some more. I get it. She's lonely. She's lost her way in life. I see all that very clearly. Subsequently I could have used a lot less of her moping. I don't want to completely trash Johansson's performance as she holds her own admirably in scenes with Murray. He is easily capable of dominating scenes and upstaging her handily but the two work well together and form a nice chemistry that drives the movie. With Murray she's great, without him she's simply dull. The seemingly endless moping scenes were real momentum killers for me, pacing problems that undermined my enjoyment of the film.
Casual movie fans will probably find those slow moments to be thoroughly painful. Serious movie fans though will more than likely be able to appreciate the film's many subtleties and Murray's great performance.
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