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Lost In Translation (Widescreen Edition)Rating:
Release Date: 03 February, 2004 Retail Price: $14.98 OUR Price: $10.99 You SAVE: $3.99! Cast: |
Lost In Translation (Widescreen Edition) Reviews
Not great
This movie had potential. It has some really great elements, like the two main characters and the Tokyo backdrop. But overall, the movie was rather slow and somewhat unfulfilling. Still, It's worth seeing.
Reminds me of Enternal Sunshine of the Spotless Mind and American Beauty.
Give me a break...
This won a SCREENPLAY Oscar?!? WHAT screenplay??? In a post-award interview Sofia Coppola admitted her idea didn't really have a plot when she thought of it, and it still doesn't. It isn't even really an idea. It's just one simple, ordinary impression--a rainy, somber, downbeat slice of time, stretched like taffy into two interminable hours. If it had been written by Jim or Jane Jones of 1234 Main Street, Anytown USA, it would have gotten no further than the local Starbucks.
Now, lest you think I'm some gen-xer who grew up in a post-Star Wars universe and have the attention span of a flashcube and no taste for "character-driven" films, let me state that I like slow movies; I like "atmospheric" movies. I even like movies where the impression is more integral than the linear plot. I am a big fan of Robert Altman, for example.
But there's not much here, and what precious little there is we have to thank Bill Murray for. The characters are not well-fleshed out. Murray's relationship with his wife back home begs to be explored, but Sofia doesn't go there. The same is true with Scarlett Johansson's workaholic and kissaholic boyfriend. Because we don't really know anything about the baggage our main characters are carrying, we feel nothing when they hook up. Here are two empty vessels--not lost souls, empty vessels--spending time in a posh Tokyo hotel for a week. Both are rich and both are bored and boring. Both are spoiled and both are not the slightest bit self-aware. Yawn. Please please please show me the slightest hint of an idea in here somewhere. (Instead of a surprising fillip, the photographer husband photographs vapid Cameron Diaz-like actresses. Sofia must have spent about ten minutes thinking through that scene.) The most refreshing moment in the film for me was a bed scene between the two principles that was not played for sex--they are just lying in bed together. It's clear their primary attraction is mental, not physical. If only we had more of that to explore. I'd understand if this film won Oscars for cinematography or set design or sound, but the screenplay, if you read it in black and white, is hackneyed and predictable. Sofia just gives it a stylish polish.
What are we to make over the sweet nothing he whispers in her ear at their farewell? Rather than debate all the things it could mean, I rather think she didn't know what he said because she couldn't think of something, a moment to tie it all together, because there's nothing to tie. (Screenplays with strong resolutions seem to evade the Coppola clan, Godfather I aside.) You need a nugget, a morsel, heck, a conceit, for a movie, and this didn't have one. It relied too much on the personas of its stars, and in the end it wasn't enough. I have no problem with lightly-penned screenplays, but this is a ghost, a notion, a concept that never got beyond the back of a napkin before Hollywood started throwing money at her.
What I don't understand is why everyone got in such a lather over this work. It's stylishly shot, but that's the work of the cinematographer more than her, and I'm sure the daughter of Francis Ford Coppola gets the best cinematographer that daddy's winery money can buy. The accompanying music video and making-of documentary are just as empty and image-filled as the movie. This plays like a two-hour long perfume or underwear commercial. But are you trying to tell me to take Sofia Coppola seriously as a directing talent? A screenwriter? A voice? An "auteur"? Gimme a break!
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