Lost In Translation

Year: 2003

Grade: C-

Country: USA

Director: Coppola

Review

i still haven’t seen virgin suicides, but i heard it wasn’t all that special. if that’s true then sofia coppola has repeated herself. this film has about one and a half good ideas: show johansson’s ass a lot and hire bill murray. it was funny for a while, but only really had one gag – make fun of the differences in japanese culture. har har. one might spin it as making fun of americans not understanding japanese culture, in which case coppola would be making fun of her audience, but this claim isn’t supported by the film so i conclude that she was just making cheap jokes about how wacky those japanese people can be. i don’t know that i’d say she was being mean or hateful, but she wasn’t being very creative either. that aside…the characters aren’t all that impressive. both johansson and murray are seeking the same thing and it’s a rather simple thing – “a simple prop to occupy their time.” both were having marital problems and were in a foreign place all alone. i, personally, didn’t feel that their connection was very real or deep; their relationship arose, not because of who they are, but because of their situation. i think this is mostly because of the script and/or direction (the acting was decent enough). i just never felt that the two characters really connected in any meaningful way. after about 45 minutes it really started to drag and that umbilical cord between the screen and me, that tarantino refers to, was severed permanently.

Watched in theater