Lost in Translation

Lost in Translation is chock full of beautiful scenes, with Sofia Coppola selecting Tokyo as a backdrop to rich empty spaces that Bill Murray and Scarlett Johannson fill mesmerizingly. The magic of this movie lies in the details of these spaces. Every moment is strikingly believable and brings on swirls of emotion. With an impressive finesse, the movie paints a picture of two very lost people, both wrestling with a melancholy spectrum of feelings in an isolating, alien world.

Bill Murray plays a famous actor on the far side of mid-life and Scarlett Johannson plays a young newly-wed who has been dragged to Japan by her husband she no longer recognizes. They both find themselves in Tokyo's Park Hyatt where the preferred amenity is the 24/7 hotel bar, live jazz and all. With Bill Murray habitually checking into this bar to nurse some whiskey, Scarlett Johannson decides he's the most interesting fixture in the place. They quickly find solace in each other and their relationship soon blossoms into their own personal oases of comfort. As comfort turns to love, they both hold on desperately, if not simply being entirely unsure of what else to do.

While many movies might not be able to pull off the age gap between Bill and Scarlett's characters, here it simply just works. It suspends itself in a delicate balance of their wildly different perspectives, and this careful act never crosses into the realm of uncomfortable. In fact, somehow the movie manages to have each scene be more believable than the last. And as each minute passes by, you actually can't help putting yourself in Japan next to Bill and Scarlett and feeling exactly as they are.

It is truly the sum of little moments that leaves this movie hitting with the full force of a wave. It pulls up old, lost, yet familiar feelings and it is irresistibly cathartic to watch these feelings swell up and wash away from each moment as Bill and Scarlett both struggle to navigate them. This movie leaves giving you exactly what you want it to, and I can't think of many others like it that do.