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shinydanSo you go to a concert, and you listen to the warm-up act who you've never heard of. And they pull countless rabbits out of their hats, inventing new genres as they go, and they leave to rapturous applause. Then the main act comes on, the people you really paid to see. And somehow, despite all the talent on stage, despite the clever guitar work and the precision saxophone strikes, despite all the virtuosity, all you want to do is go to the bar. That's precisely how "Lost In Translation" left me feeling.
Scarlett Johansson and her arse co-star, both giving very pleasing, rounded performances. She hits all of her marks, emotes exactly as required, and earns her pay very satisfactorily. The problem I have is with the character she's asked to play. Her marriage seems to be dead in the water after two years, and her Hollywood photographer husband shouldn't have married her in the first place. But she's just letting it happen because she's, you know, finding herself man.
Bill Murray, puts in his usual turn as himself - full of sardonic, self-mocking wit who never quite falls into actual self-loathing. I love watching this routine, so does everyone else, and now he's grown into his face a bit and can add a slight melancholy to his acting, he's able to take on roles like this one and, from what I've heard, "The Life Aquatic". But all you have to do is scratch his surface and he reverts to playing the same damn character he played in "Ghostbusters", just like he has so many times, and he was given several opportunities to do it here.
The western members of the supporting cast are, without exception, teeth-grindingly irritating - as if Sofia Coppola had directed them to just be as Californian as possible. I think I was supposed to find Johansson and Murray sympathetic by comparison, but that didn't work because these were the people they were already, by choice, surrounded by back in America. The Eastern supporting cast were equally stereotypical - precise when being professional, and beyond embarrassment while relaxing in karaoke and titty bars. Watching the leads and their Japanese friends murder various classic songs was one of the few points of warmth in the entire film.
While I'm on stereotypes, I must mention that the Japanese portrayed here are, with very few exceptions, completely unable to understand English - presumably drawing a parallel between the language gap and the gender and age gaps which the film is looking at. Except that's all it does - look at them. Again, the scene in the titty bar made the point that women are treated badly in Japan, but did so in something of a vacuum.
The cinematography is universally gorgeous. I happily concede that I have a special place in my heart for Tokyo as a whole, which meant that I got a major kick out of the travelogue sequences, and there's a golf shot with Mount Fuji in it which is sheer landscape pornography. But none of that made up for the aching gap in the centre of the piece. It was simply soulless.
The director, Sofia Coppola, doesn't want to engage with anyone in her film, and somehow I never really cared about any of them either. The May to December romance between the leads ended up feeling more like a father/daughter relationship with a tiny sexual frisson, and that killed my interest stone dead. I did enjoy the film, but there was the sense that it could have been so much more than simply good, and given the talents involved that isn't really excusable.
A version of this review originally appeared at livejournal.myopedia.com
Scarlett Johansson and her arse co-star, both giving very pleasing, rounded performances. She hits all of her marks, emotes exactly as required, and earns her pay very satisfactorily. The problem I have is with the character she's asked to play. Her marriage seems to be dead in the water after two years, and her Hollywood photographer husband shouldn't have married her in the first place. But she's just letting it happen because she's, you know, finding herself man.
Bill Murray, puts in his usual turn as himself - full of sardonic, self-mocking wit who never quite falls into actual self-loathing. I love watching this routine, so does everyone else, and now he's grown into his face a bit and can add a slight melancholy to his acting, he's able to take on roles like this one and, from what I've heard, "The Life Aquatic". But all you have to do is scratch his surface and he reverts to playing the same damn character he played in "Ghostbusters", just like he has so many times, and he was given several opportunities to do it here.
The western members of the supporting cast are, without exception, teeth-grindingly irritating - as if Sofia Coppola had directed them to just be as Californian as possible. I think I was supposed to find Johansson and Murray sympathetic by comparison, but that didn't work because these were the people they were already, by choice, surrounded by back in America. The Eastern supporting cast were equally stereotypical - precise when being professional, and beyond embarrassment while relaxing in karaoke and titty bars. Watching the leads and their Japanese friends murder various classic songs was one of the few points of warmth in the entire film.
While I'm on stereotypes, I must mention that the Japanese portrayed here are, with very few exceptions, completely unable to understand English - presumably drawing a parallel between the language gap and the gender and age gaps which the film is looking at. Except that's all it does - look at them. Again, the scene in the titty bar made the point that women are treated badly in Japan, but did so in something of a vacuum.
The cinematography is universally gorgeous. I happily concede that I have a special place in my heart for Tokyo as a whole, which meant that I got a major kick out of the travelogue sequences, and there's a golf shot with Mount Fuji in it which is sheer landscape pornography. But none of that made up for the aching gap in the centre of the piece. It was simply soulless.
The director, Sofia Coppola, doesn't want to engage with anyone in her film, and somehow I never really cared about any of them either. The May to December romance between the leads ended up feeling more like a father/daughter relationship with a tiny sexual frisson, and that killed my interest stone dead. I did enjoy the film, but there was the sense that it could have been so much more than simply good, and given the talents involved that isn't really excusable.
A version of this review originally appeared at livejournal.myopedia.com
