Lost In Translation

xiaoxin's picture

Is a bit lost on me.

Here's the plot summary by a poster on IMDB:

"Bob Harris (Murray) and Charlotte (Johansson) are two Americans in Tokyo. Bob is a movie star in town to shoot a whiskey commercial, while Charlotte is a young woman tagging along with her workaholic photographer husband (Ribisi). Unable to sleep, Bob and Charlotte cross paths one night in the luxury hotel bar. This chance meeting soon beomces a surprising friendship. Charlotte and Bob venture through Tokyo, becomes friends with a young movie actress Kelly (Faris), have often hilarious encounters with its citizens, and ultimately discover a new belief in life's possibilities."

Ummm yeah. This plot summary is misleading. Lets clear a couple of things up first. It's not just a chance meeting. They met several times and many more times before they started being friends. And that doesn't happen until an hour into the film. And as for the actress Kelly being their friend? That's a bunch of baloney! And I'm not sure any possibilties were discovered at the end of this movie... maybe but that's up for you to interpret.

I tried hard to like this movie. Maybe too hard. Mainly because I love Bill Murray. And I read the glowing reviews on IMDB. I went into theather ready to laugh and cry. But this movie didn't live up to expectations.

My main problem is things moved too slow. There's a lot of slow shots of the characters by themselves looking out windows and just sitting there. I know it's to show them being isolated and lonely but it gets very boring after awhile. Also don't expect Groundhogs Day because in this movie the comedy was very light. The dialog while sometimes amusing was not that funny. Also, what I found a bit frustrating was some shots in the movie that made no sense and served no purpose whatsoever! Bill Murray playing golf... umm okay? Why is she walking around in the temple? Nothing happens. Repeat.

In conclusion I think you will enjoy this movie once you realize what I said above AND if you don't expect too much. I expected too much and was a little bit disappointed. But with that being said this is still a sweet touching movie. The ending is a little bittersweet. And so as a whole I enjoyed it. But that's probably because the character Charlotte (strangely) reminds me of my ex girlfriend. Older guy, younger woman. You get the picture.