Bill Murray is cranky and Scarlett Johansson talks in a completely different voice in Tokyo, Japan.
"I can't believe you rated Lost in Translation 2.5 stars out of 5," said one of my friends when he saw my Letterboxd rating for this film.
"The whole movie is just Bill Murray being moody because they speak Japanese in Japan, and then really awkwardly flirting with Scarlett Johansson," I replied.
He disagreed, describing this film as a really beautiful portrayal of falling in love, without the overdramatized, "bombastic nature" of usual rom-coms.
Which, like, one part of me can agree with. There's a part of me that enjoyed that this film portrays the awkward, tense, slow-building way you can fall in love with someone. The shy glances, the silences, the vulnerability. This film also explores the isolation of being in a foreign country, not being able to speak the language, feeling disoriented or alienated. It explores how much of our communication goes beyond language, and demonstrates how connection can be found even in the most unlikely circumstances.
I liked that the movie showed how "lost in translation" can refer to language barriers but also to the ways in which we understand each other. We see examples of two marriages where, despite a sense of underlying love, the two couples struggle to see from one another's point of view. Then there is a point where Charlotte (Scarlett Johansson) and Bob Harris (Bill Murray) look at one another, at the very end, trying to search one another's eyes as if to find, are we on the same page? After an entire movie of being "lost in translation", they find one another speaking the same language, so-to-speak; they are both aware that what they have found is love.
So despite the fact I can write all this about the movie, and see what makes it so great and beautiful, there was something that felt very "off" about it.
Throughout the film, I felt that the depiction of the Asian characters was really one-dimensional. All of the Japanese characters were there only as plot devices for Bob Harris to make jokes about the culture, and of their broken English. Honestly the entire movie was just so pretentious; we have Bob Harris, this famous American movie star, going to Japan, and then feeling lonely and isolated NOT because he can't speak Japanese, but because the Japanese people surrounding him don't speak perfect English. Like, bro.
You see, I can understand travelling to a foreign country and struggling to understand the language, finding yourself feeling a little bit alienated as you attempt to familiarize yourself with your surroundings. But what I don't understand is feeling a sense of superiority because you speak English and they don't????? Like bro????? Something about this movie feels racist, and looking at the bad reviews of this movie, I'm not the only one who felt this.
Also the fact that half of the movie, the main characters spend in their hotel room instead of exploring Tokyo. Like, your expenses have been paid, you are basically on a free vacation in Japan, and you spend the entire time sitting in your bed making fun of Japanese television. If that's how you're going to spend your time, maybe just stay in America and do that instead.
Bill Murray is just so condescending, and he has the audacity to act all pompous and angry when he is both getting paid 2 million dollars to film a commercial, and he is in on a free trip to Tokyo (shoutout to the cinematography, though, it did show how beautiful Tokyo is). Like, maybe stop feeling bad for yourself, and actually do some exploration. But no, he's like, I'm gonna sit all day in the hotel room playing golf on the floor, and then go to the hotel bar and drink alone at the bar every night, while glaring at everyone who attempts to talk to me (except for the hot 17 year old, of course). Dude. What. Are. You. Doing.
And then, for about 30 minutes of the movie, he actually explores Tokyo, thanks to Scarlett Johansson. What do they do? Go to a Japanese strip club, sing some karaoke, smoke up in a random apartment. There was really no attempt at actually understanding or enjoying Japanese culture. Any of the actual "culture" was framed as weird and inferior. This movie should have simply be titled "Lost in Ethnocentrism".
This movie literally made me feel nauseous and I was like "wow, maybe you're thinking too hard. Stop analyzing the movie and just enjoy the vibes." But then I paid attention and all I could think of is, the entire plot of this movie revolves around a 50 year old man flirting with a 17 year old while he acts like he is above Japanese people. So yeah, I don't think the problem is my brain, I think the problem is the movie.
Also Scarlett Johansson is SO YOUNG did I mention she is 17? And the movie opens with a shot of her butt. Something feels wrong about that. And then the part where Bob Harris is randomly rubbing her feet? This movie is a mess. I can't handle it.
I want to go back into Letterboxd and rate it .5 out of 5, because the more I think about it, the more I hate it.
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