“Lost in Translation”

I went to see “Lost in Translaion” last week thinking I probably wouldn’t like it. I still can’t forgive Sophia Coppola for ruining “The Godfather Part 3” with her awful acting, and despite all the hype I still wasn’t really sure what the movie was about. But I came out of the theater thinking it was the best movie about relationships I’ve seen since “Eyes Wide Shut.”

There isn’t much of a plot. Bill Murray plays an aging actor who’s in Tokyo to shoot a whiskey ad, and Scarlett Johansson plays a 20-something stuck in Tokyo while her young husband shoots photos for album covers. They meet in a hotel bar, and spend about a week hanging out together.

It gets a lot of feelings right - the feeling of being in a very foreign country, jet-lagged and unable to sleep; the feeling of hanging out in a bad bar in a foreign hotel for lack of anything else to do; the feeling of driving through a strange city at night and just letting the sights wash over you. And it’s a fascinating character study of two people at different stages of their romantic lives crossing paths for a few moments.

If it sounds a little strange and arty, it is, but it’s well worth the $10. As Joe Bob would say, check it out . . .


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