Lost in Translation |  | Director: Sofia Coppola
Actors: Bill Murray, Scarlett Johansson, Giovanni Ribisi, Anna Faris, Akiko Takeshita
Studio: Universal Studios
Category: DVD
List Price: $9.99
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Rating:  1917 reviews
Sales Rank: 1656
Format: AC-3, Anamorphic, Color, Dolby, DTS Surround Sound, Dubbed, DVD, Subtitled, Widescreen, NTSC
Languages: English (Original Language), French (Original Language), Spanish (Subtitled), French (Subtitled), French (Dubbed)
Rating: R (Restricted)
Region: 1
Aspect Ratio: 1.85:1
Number Of Discs: 1
Running Time: 102 Minutes
Shipping Weight (lbs): 0.3
Dimensions (in): 7.4 x 5.4 x 0.6
MPN: MCAD23957D
ISBN: 0783297807
UPC: 766481298137
EAN: 9780783297804
ASIN: B00005JMJ4
Theatrical Release Date: October 3, 2003
Release Date: February 3, 2004
Availability: Usually ships in 1-2 business days
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Amazon.com
Like a good dream, Sofia Coppola's Lost in Translation envelops you with an aura of fantastic light, moody sound, head-turning love, and a feeling of déjà vu, even though you've probably never been to this neon-fused version of Tokyo. Certainly Bob Harris has not. The 50-ish actor has signed on for big money shooting whiskey ads instead of doing something good for his career or his long-distance family. Jetlagged, helplessly lost with his Japanese-speaking director, and out of sync with the metropolis, Harris (Bill Murray, never better) befriends the married but lovelorn 25-year-old Charlotte (played with heaps of poise by 18-year-old Scarlett Johansson). Even before her photographer husband all but abandons her, she is adrift like Harris but in a total entrapment of youth. How Charlotte and Bill discover they are soul mates will be cherished for years to come. Written and directed by Coppola (The Virgin Suicides), the film is far more atmospheric than plot-driven: we whiz through Tokyo parties, karaoke bars, and odd nightlife, always ending up in the impossibly posh hotel where the two are staying. The wisps of bittersweet loneliness of Bill and Charlotte are handled smartly and romantically, but unlike modern studio films, this isn't a May-November fling film. Surely and steadily, the film ends on a much-talked-about grace note, which may burn some, yet awards film lovers who "always had Paris" with another cinematic destination of the heart. --Doug Thomas
Product Description
5,000 MILES FROM HOME, BOB HARRIS IS FACING A MID-LIFE CRISIS,WHEN THESE TWO LONELY AMERICANS CROSS PATHS IN A TOKYO BAR, THEIR CHANCE ENCOUNTER SPARKS A SERIES OF HILARIOUS ADVENTURES, CREATING AN UNEXPECTED CONNECTION THAT MIGHT NOT LAST, BUT WILL STAY WITH THEM FOREVER
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| Customer Reviews:
Showing reviews 1-5 of 1917
 An enjoyable, perceptive comedy, but deep? No way. February 9, 2010
Robert J. Crawford (Balmette Talloires, France)
THere are a lot of things going for this film. Its grotesque parody of Japanese culture - a true delight to anyone who knows Japan - is without question a bull's-eye: having lived in Japan, I can say that the place really does at times appear to you the way that it does to the visitors. Coppola gets Japan, or at least Tokyo, in what I found to be a unique yet tasteful way. THe chemistry between Murray and Johansson is also extremely believable: two strangers in their own life crises meet in a hotel and strike up a sudden intimacy, feeling like soulmates is their splendidly luxurious isolation and cultural alienation. Finally, the acting is positively excellent, particularly Johansson, who comes off as something of a dowdy intellectual, confronted by a stalled marriage and broken identity. But Murray is great, too, as a film star whose life is moving too fast as his wife pulls away from him while controlling the nest of kids at home.
That being said, the way that some people heap praise on this film as if it were by Bergman goes a bit far. Sure, they achieve a kind of immediate intimacy and openness, but these things happen when you travel and then they evaporate just as quickly. But then, this is hollywoodian to its core: the slightest gestures and exchanges are magnified and become icons to compare to one's own life narrative, a kind of pseudo introspection, almost the way mythology used to supply images to people as they lived their everyday lives.
I would recommend the film as funny and smart, but it is only an excellent comedy and not by any means a bildungsroman or psychological realism, as I had been led to expect from the reviews here.
Tokyo Story January 2, 2010
Dale Miller (Ann Arbor, MI)
Bill Murray, looking old and wasted, plays Bob Harris, a film actor who has come to Tokyo to shoot a whiskey commercial. Scarlett Johansson is very appealing as Charlotte, the neglected young wife of a photographer. The other star in this film is the city of Tokyo, whose surreal glitz pulses throughout the film and provides a thematic undercurrent.
It is their alienation from this unreal foreign world that brings Murray and Johansson together in a friendship that approaches romance and ends in sad inevitability when the waning actor leaves Tokyo to return to his own deflated marriage, leaving Johansson to await the return of her insensitive, self-absorbed, preoccupied husband. A leitmotif is the two characters' feelings of emotional estrangement. They are "lost" not only because of language and culture barriers but in a deeper sense, their disillusionment with lives that seem to lack the richness they'd expected.
The story is rather thin and the dialogue less than crackles. Charlotte doesn't get very many good lines and has to compensate with a good range of facial expression. Bill Murray's character tries to wax philosophical but it sounds clichéd, as when he tells Charlotte that once you have children "Your life is never the same again." Charlotte agonizes over her lack of direction: she tried writing but her self-evaluation of her work was that it was terrible (Harris later tells her somberly that she should keep writing).
But director Sofia Coppola makes the most of the materials at hand, and this is a good film in spite of its defects. Murray and Johansson's performances overcome a weak script, and the vignettes of life in Tokyo capture the spirit of a city that one writer has compared to Disneyland.
 One of the best movies I've seen with one of the best ending January 2, 2010
D. Allen
After watching Lost In Translation I could sum it up as a film about hope. The movie felt so great at the end and it just makes you want to laugh, cry, and perhaps jump for joy.
Bill Murray and Scarlett Johansson star together in what I would consider one of the best movie about loneliness and hopefulness. Bill Murray played a middle aged actor who is having a midlife crisis and then happen to meet a young, beautiful woman (Scarlett Johansson) who is just starting out with life and really just don't know what lies ahead. To say the least, the two of them are fairly lonely in their trip to Tokyo and question what lies ahead. Murray is on a business trip to make money from sponsors, but he has a wife at home who pays more attention to their children than him. Johansson plays a newly wed wife who is tagging along with her husband on a business trip. She isn't sure what lies ahead in the future of the two, and she is sort of depressed and feels isolated. Together, Johansson and Murray learn something together and both at the end realizes that life has a lot more to offer than what is in a relationship.
I would say the best thing about Lost in Translation is the movie's setting. It is filmed on location in Tokyo, Japan. I never been to Japan, but I have been to Korea and I can relate to the feeling of isolation but as well as a part of the culture there. You can't understand what anyone is saying, nor can you understand the surrounding environment, and to top it off, anyone you happen to meet who speaks English can speak it very well but carrying out an actual decent conversation is next to impossible. I think Lost in Translation captured that very well.
I think what makes this movie so special is the actors who played it out. Scarlett has a very special look to her that I think fit well for this movie. She has a sort of modern beauty to her, but at the same time, you can sort of sense that she is searching for something in life. Bill Murray usually plays an arrogant, stuck up character, but his role in this movie used that to its advantage but also brought about something human in him. You can almost feel a sense of loneliness, confusion, and sort of hopelessness out of his character as he is stuck in a midlife crisis.
The movie ends in what I would consider thought provoking. [spoilers] At the end of the movie, Bill has to return home from Japan and Johansson is sort of sad to see him go, but doesn't really know what to say or how to say goodbye. So they sort of shook hands, said a quick goodbye, and parted. Still not feeling all that great, Bill is in his taxi when he sees Johansson walking amongst the crowd. He tells the driver to stop, and he walks up besides Johansson and they meet again both looking confused as to what to say. Bill then hugs Johansson, and he whispers something to her ear then parts. I think this is quite possibly the best part of the entire film. It sort of makes you wonder what Bill said to Johansson at the end, but at the same time it gives you a bit of hope and inspiration that even though you feel lonely now, and perhaps in what ever relationship you are in, that there is always hope and in that it sort of brings about your purpose, I think. [end spoilers].
With such a brilliant ending, wonderfully thought out actor and actress, and a beautiful setting, I think this movie is one of the best movies of the recent decade. At the end of the film I was feeling great about myself and each time I see this movie, I just think about it for days at a time. I say get this movie!
 lost October 4, 2009
Ray Leonard Newsome (Newport News, VA.)
1 out of 5 found this review helpful
I tracked this item and it shows it was delivered, but I haven't seen it, what is going to be done about it?
Missing The Words But Deciphering The Meaning... September 29, 2009
darklordzden (Australia)
1 out of 1 found this review helpful
Bob Harris (Bill Murray) arrives in Tokyo nursing killer jetlag and an ever-widening gulf between his personal aspirations and his professional obligations, as well as a marriage succumbing to the laws of entropy; A middle-aged actor of some repute and former stardom, he checks into a luxurious Japanese hotel and girds his loins in order to get through a three day stint starring in a Whiskey commercial for which he is being paid an obscene amount of money.
Charlotte (Scarlett Johansson) haunts the corridors of the same hotel, as well as the streets of Tokyo, while her husband, John (Giovanni Ribisi), is off photographing obscenely hip bands around Japan for a magazine spread. Recently married, lacking a palpable direction in life and recently transposed to L.A. from New York, Charlotte feels like the proverbial lost soul.
Bob and Charlotte, strangers in a strange land, notice each other, meet and strike up an unlikely acquaintance and this beautifully shot and languidly paced film leaves it up to the audience to decide what really happens next.
Sofia Coppola's "Lost In Translation" is hands-down one of my favourite films of all time.
Its about insomnia; jetlag; bad lounge bands; not knowing which dish on the menu is which; drunken nights in karaoke bars with people who have just become your new best friends; strange new cultures; unconsummated passions; the beauty of solitary moments; waking up in a strange new place; the ambiguity of human relationships; the frisson of recognition when you first realise the connection with a kindred spirit and the utter banality of most Hollywood films. It is slowly paced, beautifully crafted, touching in parts, hypnotic in others and is occasionally wince-inducingly funny.
It also boasts a gorgeous soundtrack featuring the likes of Air, Squarepusher, and Mount Sims.
It is also unequivocally 'not' just a "mid-life crisis" movie. Or if it is, it's the "mid-life crisis" movie that the world deserves.
Its a film that will soothe the soul, lighten the burden, lull you to sleep and leave you wanting to breathe the crisp morning air after a drunken night on the town.
Showing reviews 1-5 of 1917
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