Lost in Translation

2/4

Starring: Bill Murray, Scarlett Johansson, Giovanni Ribisi, Anna Faris

Rated R (Inexplicably) for Some Sexual Content

Slow movies are fine.  Another romance, “Brokeback Mountain,” is a good example.  That movie moved at a slow yet deliberate pace so we could really get to know the characters and experience them falling in love.  “Lost in Translation” attempts to do the same thing, but it fails miserably and thus becomes an overlong bore.

Bob (Bill Murray) is an actor at the end of his career.  He’s in Japan being paid $2 million to advertise a whiskey.  But he is bored and doesn’t know anyone or the customs, hence the term “lost.”  He runs into another person in the same position, a woman named Charlotte (Johansson).  She followed her husband to Japan where he is doing a photo shoot.  Since both of them are bored out of their minds, they start hanging out together and a friendship blossoms.

It’s easy to understand what writer/director Sofia Coppola is trying to do, and to an extent, she achieves it.  The atmosphere is warm and dreamy, the perfect place for a story like this to germinate.  The shots of Tokyo are gorgeous, and give a great sense of the city.  But the film never takes off.  Why?  Bill Murray.

When I heard Bill Murray was starring in a drama, I winced.  He can be a hilarious comedian in the right role, but lately he has been appearing in Wes Anderson’s films and offbeat dramas.  There’s nothing wrong with the latter (many comedians attempt to branch out into dramas, some, like Robin Williams, do it quite successfully), but I have a problem with the former.  To say that I hate Wes Anderson is a massive understatement.  I HATED “The Royal Tenenbaums.”  It’s boring, pretentious and it tries to be too “cute”.  I was worried that “Lost in Translation” would be in the same vein.  Thankfully, it’s not, but I almost wish it were so I’d have some kind of opinion about it.

But I digress…the problem with the film is that Bill Murray has almost no range.  He does the same schtick over and over again, and while it’s funny in an openly comedic context, it doesn’t work in a muted form because Murray has no capacity for drama.  Bob is simply Bill Murray being intentionally low-key.

There is a bright spot in the film, and that’s Scarlett Johannson.  The success of this film caused the gifted actress to break out into the mainstream, and it’s not hard to see why.  She gives a terrific performance as Charlotte, bringing some desperately needed dramatic heft in every scene in which she appears.  Unfortunately, she’s strictly a supporting character, so we’re left with a miscast Bob, who’s present in every scene.

Sofia Coppola has the skills to be a great filmmaker.  She is a master at tone and atmosphere, but character development is minimal.  In this case, where the characters’ understanding of each other is supposed to be fleeting, it’s understandable.  But we need something more substantial to carry us through the film.  The plot is minimal, and there is so little character development that there’s not much that any of the actors can do.  It helps immensely that Johansson is skilled at non-vocal communication and has screen presence.  Bill Murray has neither, and his attempts to convey the feelings of the sad sack that his character is come across as forced.

In short, the film deals itself a real blow by the miscasting of its lead.  It takes more than Bill Murray can do to play a character where non-vocal communication and screen presence are crucial.