By EWAN MacDONALD
(Herald rating: * * * *)
Lost in Translation may be a love story. It may be a romantic comedy. It is a subtle, underplayed and yet wonderfully played story that could, in an earlier age, have been written for the stage by Noel Coward and performed in Opera Houses around the world by Larry Olivier and Vivien Leigh.
Tokyo, the present. Two Americans meet in an anonymous five-star hotel that might be in any city anywhere. It is important that it is in Tokyo. They are dislocated. Bob Harris (Billy Murray) is an ageing, never-quite-made-it movie star who's in town shooting a lucrative commercial for Japanese whisky. Charlotte (Scarlett Johnansson) is 22, two years married to a celebrity photographer (Giovanni Ribisi), is there to shoot a rock group.
Each is jetlagged and can't sleep. He will receive fax after phone call after courier package from his wife in the US about decorating the new house, carpet samples, the kids' birthdays. She is directionless. She has a philosophy degree, has tried writing and photography and is now into personal improvement via CD.
This isn't a movie about plot. It is a series of random or accidental encounters and conversations, mostly among two people who don't know where they are or where they are going. Or where they want to go. And before you think that the answer is obvious, writer-director Sofia Coppola doesn't deal in the obvious cliche. In fact, the ending is one of the most subtle and enigmatic moments you will see on a screen.
Murray's performance is awe-inspiring. He is Bob Harris, Every Middle-aged Man. What a pity that this film was up for Oscar consideration in the same year as Sean Penn filmed Mystic River.
DVD, video rental July 21
Lost In Translation
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