Lost In Translation

UK Release Date. 9 January 2004
Certification. 15

Running Time. 1 hour 42 mins
Director. Sofia Coppola

Cast. Anna Faris, Scarlett Johansson, Bill Murray, Giovanni Ribisi.

Rating. 75%

Review.

In Lost in Translation Bill Murray plays Bob Harris, an ageing actor who has come to Japan to shoot a whisky commercial. He encounters Charlotte (Scarlett Johansson), a young college graduate accompanying her husband (Giovanni Ribisi) on a celebrity photo shoot. Both are jet-lagged. Both are lost.

An initial flirtation becomes friendship as the storyline develops and then leads to a deeper connection between the two main characters.

The film is charming, endearing and heart-warming, but at times cold and sterile, and at other times melancholic and pedestrian. How is this even possible?

Bill Murray delivers an uncharacteristic understated performance, but it's Scarlett Johansson, just 17 at the time of filming, that steals the show as the abandoned and adrift Charlotte. A feisty, yet fragile character, searching for meaning in her existence.

The ambient instrumental soundtrack produced by Kevin Shields is beautiful, but the pre-existing material adds a real heartbeat to the film. The abrasive guitars in My Bloody Valentine's 'Sometimes' crash onto the screen the morning after the karaoke bar, and the selection of The Jesus and Mary Chain's 'Just Like Honey' to close the film is a masterstroke. The Jesus and Mary Chain and uplifting, do not often appear in the same sentence.

In a film where the main characters are constantly searching for answers, Sofia Coppola ensures that throughout the Japanese dialogue is never subtitled and the final exchange between the two main characters is not heard by the audience. Clever, very clever.

Lost In Translation celebrates those all too rare precious moments of perfection in relationships. Spontaneous moments that no-one wants to end because they will never be replicated. As Charlotte says, "Let's never come here again because it would never be as much fun."