It is not immediately obvious that Sofia Coppola's spellbinding second film, \Lost in Translation,"" is a romantic comedy.??Coppola wisely sidesteps the hallmarks of that genre-clich??s, vapid sexuality and blatant plot contrivances.
Bill Murray plays Bob Harris, a middle-aged movie star whose career is waning.??He finds himself in Tokyo shooting an ad for Japanese whiskey.??Murray looks constantly confused by his surroundings, jet-lagged, lost in a foreign land. He is confounded by the language and culture barriers and his multiple whiskey ad takes are hilarious-it is an example of deadpan humor at its best, as only Murray can do it.
Bob's humor is bittersweet, though.??Underneath, Murray's character-like his Herman Blume character in ""Rushmore""-is unhappy and drifting.??He realizes he is selling out by doing a whiskey ad instead of looking for a play or a movie, but the two million dollars wins him over.??Also persuasive is the opportunity to get half a world away from his wife of 25 years who faxes him guilt trips.
Bob, however, soon regards the hyperkinetic Tokyo as a prison.??He is plagued by insomnia and spends his nights sipping whiskey at the posh hotel bar.??There, he meets Charlotte (Scarlett Johansson), another American insomniac who is struggling and unhappy. Then, because Bob is a movie star, Charlotte ends up sleeping with him.
Just kidding.??Coppola's film is much too subtle and smart to unfold so predictably.??Charlotte is at the opposite end of the spectrum from Bob-early 20-something, recently graduated from college and married for two years. Both are lonely, having marriage problems and wandering.
The real reason to see this film is Bill Murray's fantastically brilliant performance.??Murray gathers all of his comedic powers, and then, more importantly, knows exactly when to restrain himself so as not to betray the film's delicate tone. He plays off the vulnerability of Blume in ""Rushmore"" but with more depth and greater effect here. The power of Murray's performance is that it seems as if he is playing a version of himself.??While watching the aging movie star Murray portrays, it is hard not to believe this is how Murray would act in real life. This is the acting role of his career and, flawlessly, he does not even seem to be acting in it.
