I didn’t watch the Oscars, but in order to be topical I’ll chime in on one of the films I’ve favoured lately — Lost in Translation.

Bill Murray manages to capture something special and unique in his role as Bob Harris. His subtle resignation as a sold out, washed up, exhausted man is all the more impressive because it is so unanticipated. We can deduce that the slide into irrelevance occurred for Bob long before the prostitution of his meager celebrity status in the name of peddling whiskey.

Watching Scarlett Johansson (Charlotte) skulk around in her underthings for two hours isn’t the worst thing I’ve had to endure, but I had some difficulty buying into the brooding, bursting-at-the-seams self-pity in many of her solitary scenes. It’s a bit harder to feel sorry for someone so beautiful and young, though the non-attention paid to her by husband oft-missing John clearly demonstrates her isolation. I wonder how closely this aspect of the character resembles Sofia Coppola’s own past?

The real magic bubbles when the two encounter each other haphazardly. Murray seems to extract some secret happiness from their relationship that radiates all the more powerfully given the fact their union is never consummated in the traditional Hollywood sense. Mulder and Scully strike again.

In my estimation, the characters are the basically the same people joined by coincidence in time and space. Displaced from their own relationships and in unfamiliar surroundings, they seek each other out as a matter of convenience, and later, genuine fondness. The story probably would have been equally effective between two lead male roles.

Kudos to Cinematographer Lance Accord — the photography of the movie is nothing if not lush. His work with Buffalo ‘66 is very much similar (and effective).

If nothing else, the movie is fresh in the context of deliberately jumping off the safe tracks of the “screenwriter success formula“. It’s certainly worth seeing if you’re tired of pyrotechnics and car chases.