Weary from jet lag, American twentysomething Charlotte (Scarlett Johansson) wanders the bright, crowded streets of Tokyo, silently observing the restless energy that surrounds her. Having joined her pretentious photographer husband John (Giovanni Ribisi) on a business trip, she finds herself more alone than she could have ever imagined. On the phone with a friend from back home, she recounts her visit to a Buddhist temple but confides that she didn't feel anything." As the friend distractedly offers a reply, Charlotte tearfully whispers, "I don't know who I married." Her confusion also extends to her career; having recently graduated with a degree in philosophy from Yale, she is at a loss as to what to do with herself.
If Charlotte is going through a sort of quarter-life crisis, then jaded movie star Bob Harris (Bill Murray) is experiencing a mid-life one. Upon arriving at the hotel, he receives an acerbic fax from his wife, who informs him that he has forgotten his son's birthday. Despite being flanked by admirers, Bob would clearly rather be back home doing a play than earning the $2 million he has been promised to endorse a Japanese whisky.
Despite their differences in age and circumstance, Bob and Charlotte forge a bond over their mutual disillusionment with their marriages and their outsider status in Tokyo. Unable to sleep, they meet in the hotel bar in the middle of the night, surrounded by businessmen and a cheesy American jazz singer who croons over-the-top versions of Simon & Garfunkel classics.
Unlike most run-of-the mill Hollywood features depicting a May-December romance, neither Bob nor Charlotte is imbued with a indomitable spirit that teaches the other a valuable lesson on how to live life (cf. As Good as it Gets , Guinevere , My Fair Lady ). More crucially, the two do not embark on a highly-charged sexual relationship á la Last Tango in Paris ; what Bob and Charlotte share is less a craving for romantic passion than for a soulmate. What results is quieter, more contemplative film in the vein of Wong Kar-Wai's masterful In the Mood for Love (though Lost in Translation never quite achieves the same degree of aching loneliness and desire exhibited in Wong's film).
In terms of performance, the movie is justly being hailed as a high point in Bill Murray's already formidable career. Carrying his frustration with his life less markedly than, say, his hilariously touching turn as Herman Blume in Wes Anderson's Rushmore , Murray's Bob Harris nevertheless manages to register his sadness, resignation, stoicism and humor, sometimes in the course of one moment (e.g. the scene featuring his wonderful karaoke renditions of "(What's So Funny 'Bout) Peace, Love and Understanding and "More Than This").
Scarlett Johansson is similarly effective at rendering her character's prematurely world-weary state of mind. Like Murray, Johansson has little dialogue yet manages to express the loneliness and alienation of a young woman drifting along in life, uncertain of what to do next. Giovanni Ribisi and Anna Faris offer comic support as characters reportedly based on, respectively, Spike Jonze and Cameron Diaz.
Although the depiction of the Japanese in the film often verges on caricature (a point made all the more troubling by the fact that the film is set in Tokyo, thereby making Charlotte and Bob's sense of cultural superiority somewhat baffling), Murray and Johansson's poignant characterizations emblaze onto viewers' minds as forcefully as blinking lights and neon signs of the rain-soaked Tokyo streets.
Copyright © Beth Gilligan 2002-2005
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