Lost In Translation at 20: Is it still Suntory Time?
The culture has shifted in the two decades since Bill Murray and Scarlett Johansson bonded in a Tokyo hotel. So, does this film still hold up?
Film Features Lost in Translation
Reciting lines for a Japanese whisky commercial, Bill Murray looks deep into the camera with straight-faced irony and says, “For relaxing times, make it Suntory time.” An increasingly agitated director gives him lengthy instructions that are translated, hilariously, with improbable brevity. The scene is unforgettable, even though it’s been 20 years since Sofia Coppola’s dramedy, Lost In Translation, first enchanted moviegoers with its mixture of gorgeous cinematography, a hypnotic soundtrack, and appealing leads.
Although some aspects of the film are problematic in today’s world, its humor mostly still works. So do the performances, which feature Murray, then in his 50s, doing his usual deadpan delivery opposite a 17-year-old Scarlett Johansson, who’s portraying a recent college graduate in her 20s. The characters bond over dissatisfaction in their lives and alleviate loneliness with each other’s company. Set in and around the Park Hyatt Tokyo, these unfamiliar surroundings provide a colorful backdrop that highlights their sense of alienation and charts a “will they or won’t they” course for the film.
Murray’s onscreen persona has always been pure id, impulsive and instinctual. On Saturday Night Live and in films like Caddyshack, Ghostbusters, and Groundhog Day, his hilarious performances made him an icon. But recent allegations against Murray of sexism and bad behavior on movie sets hover over any rewatch of Coppola’s May-December quasi-romance. Last year, Searchlight Pictures suspended production of Aziz Ansari’s Being Mortal, due to a sexual harassment complaint against Murray. Other allegations followed or resurfaced.
In June, Wes Anderson, who directed Murray in Rushmore, The Royal Tenenbaums, The Grand Budapest Hotel, and six other films declined to comment on the actor’s behavior, saying he considers him a family member and supporter of his work. (Anderson says he replaced Murray with Steve Carell in Asteroid City because Murray had caught Covid-19, not because of the accusations.)
Whether the allegations are potentially worthy of condemnation or simply fodder for gossip websites, Murray’s dependable charm seems to inoculate him from desertion by fans. And the world of Lost In Translation is so enveloping that there’s little room for pondering the actor’s external circumstances. Caught up in the film’s dream-like landscape, attention is focused on Murray’s uncanny timing, Johansson’s striking beauty, and is that really Mount Fuji looming behind a golf course?
Coppola’s Oscar-winning original screenplay is one of several in her career, such as Marie Antoinette and the upcoming Priscilla Presley biopic Priscilla, that specialize in women’s stories. The role of Charlotte launched Johansson as a headliner, but it’s Murray as Bob who bolsters the movie as the bigger star, and he makes his disagreeable character lovable. The performance earned Murray his (sole) Oscar nomination and widespread critical acclaim.
Elegant and wry, Murray fully embodies his character. And his gift for physical comedy is on display, as he crouches to get under a low shower head, races on an out-of-control treadmill, or shaves with a tiny razor. He takes the high road with his younger sparring partner, who initiates most of their interactions— approaching him at the hotel bar or inviting him to a party with her Japanese friend.
Though he’s having a mid-life crisis, he’s not a stereotype of a man on the prowl. He’s horrified by the offer of a “massage” in the hotel and uncomfortable in a strip club where, before requesting that they flee, he tells Charlotte her male friends are “taking a dance class.” The hotel lounge singer with a mane of red hair approaches him at the bar. And his early encounters with Charlotte are almost fatherly. He buys her a big plush owl when she’s in the hospital. They do share tender moments, such as watching Fellini’s 1960 classic La Dolce Vita on his bed, though they are fully clothed. Will they, or won’t they? They won’t.
While allegations against Murray may not spoil the film, a fresh viewing does throw light on unfairness to the Japanese characters, who are not fully formed and are almost entirely set up for comedy, particularly through language. It explains the film’s title, even if the unlikely companions are also just plain “lost.”
The swapped pronunciation of l’s and r’s that pepper the screenplay, such as “rock ‘n’ roll” and “black toe,” are there for a laugh. Sure, making fun of foreigners and cross-cultural misunderstandings are international traditions. Ugly American businessmen and McDonald’s-loving tourists receive their share of mockery onscreen. But here, the two sophisticates put little energy into grasping nuances or blending in, always hovering on the periphery in a travelogue of experiences at sushi bars, pachinko parlors, and Buddhist temples.
Yes, the culture has changed, but the film remains mesmerizing, a moving and powerful, if somewhat imperfect, work. As Bill and Charlotte, disconnected from their surroundings, find sanctuary in each other’s presence and fall for each other unexpectedly, they prove that magic can happen, even when adrift in an unfamiliar land.
73 Comments
Bill Murray is a bad bad man!
Yeah, his joke of calling Mitch Glazer whenever Roadhouse is on and telling him that his wife Kelly Lynch is cheating on him with Patrick Swayze is really inappropriate. Even more so since Swayze’s passing, although we know from Ghost that death is no obstacle to Patrick getting some action.
I would think the more problematic thing about this movie would be the long, lingering, sexual shot of a 17 year old Scarlett Johansson in her see-thru panties.
You’re sooooo brave. Soooooo problematic. Thank you so much for taking the time to write something so important.
That shot is also the cover of LP version of the soundtrack. It may have some good songs on there too.
What part of the shot is sexual? Is it the lack of nudity or the lack of anything sexual happening?
David Ehrlich wrote an excellent, insightful piece on the underwear you should check out:https://reverseshot.org/symposiums/entry/1181/lost_translation
“an excellent, insightful piece on the underwear”Sentences you should stop writing halfway through
I was 22 and newly out as queer when the movie came out and found her very hot but … yeah I don’t know if I realized she was 17 when it was filmed and the implications of that.
The scene isn’t just there to be sexually exploitative in nature. It ain’t problematic unless that’s all you can read into it.
I definitely had no idea she was 17. I was 27 and thought she was maybe five years younger than me.
That was an ass double
Pricilla the film had not been on my radar at all, but learning here that it’s a Sofia Coppola film moves it to the front of the pack.
No artist magically surveys the sociopolitical topography of the rest of mankind’s time here and then designs a work universally unproblematic across all eras…
For the most part I find Lost in Translation holds up. It’s a delightful movie. But that scene with the sex worker who goes over-the-top with swapping her Ls and Rs really bogs the film down. For that scene to work iy needs more context than the film provides. Is she doing that because that’s what her English-speaking clients expect? Is that part of the fantasy she’s been paid to to act out? The accent is hit so hard it has to be deliberate, but in the absence of anything that indicates why the character might choose to speak that way it just comes off as Sofia Coppola directing the actress to reinforce a hackneyed old stereotype for comedic effect. As a result I think the film would be better off without the scene, but it made it into the final cut so I just have to cringe through it or skip ahead when it comes up.I still laugh at the “We only have Roger Moore” bit. I remember talking with some friends after seeing the movie and trying to work out if that was just meant to be a gag for its own sake, if it was a comment about how international film distribution deals sometimes leave different parts of the world bereft of huge chunks of different film franchises, or if the implication was that since the Connery Bond films were way more overtly anti-Asian they just didn’t get distributed in Japan.
“For that scene to work iy needs more context than the film provides.”No it doesn’t. Things can just be. You don’t have to autistically explain everything.
The Connery Bond films were pretty big in Japan in the 60s, culminating with You Only Live Twice being set and filmed there. I don’t know if it’s really meant to mean anything, and if it is what it means may not be based in reality.
I need to rewatch it. I saw it once years after it first came out. I think I liked it? I don’t remember having any negative feelings toward it, but also being super-aware of the overwhelmingly positive reaction to it, at least in the film circles I was in at the time. I’m worried that it set my expectations too high, but it must not have made a very big impression on me one way or the other because I’m struggling to remember most of it.I remember Anna Faris appears in it for like a scene or two.
If you have occasion to re-watch it, remember that she’s playing a thinly-disguised version of Cameron Diaz.
The Anna Faris character has really aged the best out of all the performances in the film? “We both live in LA! We both like Mexican food!”
You think so? I’ve always found it kind of mean—in a way that called out the rest of the movie. If we’re going to be judgmental enough to mock someone being a tourist like that, why extend look to the two leads who are not engaging anyone and just be sympathetic? The scenes with Anna Farris have always highlighted to me how predictably choosy Coppola is with attention and regard.
No, No, No. Anna Farris’s character is Cameron Diaz!!
That’s what I was replying to, that Faris’ character was based on Diaz during the Being John Malkovich Japanese press junket (sorry if that was unclear.)
Gotcha.
I thought it was fine. I’m glad I saw it, but have never felt the need to revisit. It’s a good thing the performances are solid because not a hell of a lot happens. It was also the early days of Murray’s deadpan era so the sad clown thing he debuted in Rushmore hadn’t yet become a major part of his repertoire. It still had some novelty.
I haven’t seen it lately, but I remember liking it a lot and loving the soundtrack. I remember thinking most of the Japanese characters were 2-dimensional but I think that was sort of the point. We’re getting the story from the perspective of the disoriented Americans. I kind of wish Sofia Coppola had made a companion film about a Japanese crew trying to shoot a commercial with a befuddled American actor hanging out with his daughter? His girlfriend? No one knows.
I just turned it on the other night see if it held up, thinking I’d watch a few minutes. Ended up watching the whole. The “lip my stockings!” but was even more cringy, but other than that, I’d say it mostly holds up. I don’t think anyone’s opinion of the film is going to change much from when they first saw it. If anything, knowing all the behind-the-scenes things going on (the Sophia/Spike Jonze marriage, the Cameron Diaz of it all) that have come out since the original release made me a little more invested in the film.
film remains mesmerizing, a moving and powerful, if somewhat imperfect ORit is slow strange and boring.
I’ve been told that if you actually know Japanese well enough to understand what literally gets lost in translation, it gets even funnier.
I don’t know how trustworthy IMDb is, but the quotes section for ‘LiT’ translates the director’s instructions to Bob for the whiskey commercial into English, and it’s really good direction. Any decent actor who could understand what was being said to them would get exactly what was being asked for.
When I watched this movie back in the day, I gotta say I didn’t get the hype. So much of the movie seems to hinge on “Isn’t Japan WEIRD?” to an over-the-top, sometimes stereotypically mocking and hacky degree.
Japan is definitely a little bit “weird.” In many great ways, and in some weird ways, but the Japanese come of no weirder than Americans come off in foreign films. I actually thought it perfectly captured a crazy night out in a foreign city. I’ve had many – you just go with it. Tokyo can be a blast, and her local friends seemed really fun.There are many things here if you want to get offended, but I don’t really see it that way. I think it is pretty accurate – ever the boring parts communicate how boring it can really be for long stretches of time when your home-base is a hotel and you don’t speak the local language. It’s boredom punctuated by weird, fun all-nighters and immediate bonds with strangers who speak English.
Although we tend to focus on the weird stories from Japan. I don’t know if the Japanese focus on the stories of American guys getting their dick stuck in vending machines (generally from Florida, although that is due to their Sunshine Laws that make a lot of things public that are kept private in other states).
Lovely. I would prefer a long, awkward trek though Japan with strangers, before I would consent to a spa weekend in Tampa or Ft. Lauderdale.
Oh my god! A 17 year old was cast to play a women in her 20’s. Isn’t it usually the other way around?
30’s or more if it’s Grease.
I loved it when it came out, and a theater was playing it over the Summer, and I watched it again, and still loved it. I guess some of what you mention could be a little problematic now, but the same theater showed Breakfast at Tiffany’s a couple of weeks before this, which, holy cow.
Breakfast at Tiffany’s *really* hasn’t aged well. Also, Tiffany’s is a jewelry store, not a restaurant. I learned that one the hard way.
Did you never get a tacky Tiffany’s pen and pencil set from your boss for working somewhere for 5 or 10 years? (I would have preferred the $100 or so the thing actually cost, personally).
I knew it was a jewelry store, but I always assumed it also had a fancy restaurant, lol. When I finally saw it, and she was eating a donut in front of the window, I felt a little silly.
However the porn parody, ‘Fuckfest at Tiffany’s’, holds up very well.
If you ignore Mickey Rooney the movie is fine. And there are versions of the film with him cut actually.
Oh, yeah, for sure, the movie was otherwise good.
I feel like I’m in the minority of people who just really, really did not connect with this movie. I have only walked out of a theater, like, twice in my life. Once was for this movie. It was just beyond dull to me.
No, I’m with you. I found it slow and the main characters frustrating and unlikable.
Being in my late 20s, I felt like I was a little too old to connect with the ennui of Scarlett’s character when the movie came out, but now, married with kids, I feel a lot closer to the midlife crisis of Bill Murray’s character. Got a very different feeling watching this for the first time in maybe 15 years. Maybe give it another shot now.
You could be right. I think I was 22 when I saw it, maybe 23. And I am not remotely opposed to character/dialogue-driven movies to be clear. They’re my preference, in almost every instance. But this one just did not do anything for me in any way. Maybe I will have to check it out again sometime.
Didn’t walk out on it, but yeah — my overall reaction at the time was “meh” and I don’t think I’ve seen any film by Sophia Coppolla that I thought was actually very good. Maybe she doesn’t make movies for me.
To me it’s not a cinema film, it’s a watch lying on the couch film. Plenty of films I’ve not enjoyed in a theatre but fine at home. And vice-versa.
Murray comes off more like he thinks he’s just kind of a stinker/prankster than a predator. I’m not surprised he’s been startled that in the 21st century people expect boundaries to be enforced.
I saw this when it came out and have re-watched it over the years, mostly out of boredom and curiosity. I never loved it but I’ve always appreciated it.I lived in Japan for two years when I was young and my work now has allowed me to travel extensively throughout Asia, and the film does capture the weird alienation that comes when you are in a completely different culture where you don’t understand the language, but it involves a lot shouting.It also has a great soundtrack.
Interesting bit of trivia, the budget of this film was reported as $4 million and it included location shooting on Japan.The Room by Tommy Wiseau came out the same year and the budget is reported as $6 million. Presumably in and on a warehouse Tommy had access to.
The Room continues to astound and befuddle in equal measure! It goes to show the difference between renting versus buying film making equipment.
Also, the skyline from the roof of the building was a fairly expensive special effect because Wiseau didn’t like the actual skyline view from the location. That maybe can work in a blockbuster where that cost is comparatively trivial, but not so in a low budget indie movie.
Watched it again last year and it’s still lovely. Does it exoticize Japanese culture? Sure, but it’s through the perspective of two outsiders to whom the environment feels totally foreign. Moreover, it reflects how Bob himself feels about how that culture views him: a kind of exotic commodity, as strange and alluring and not-quite real as he experiences Japan.
Him telling his wife he’s staying Japan to appear on “the Japanese Johnny Carson” show, for it to be revealed as a complete circus, was pretty damn funny. Apparently one of the major cultural differences is Japanese late night is just bonkers.
That guy and his show is completely real, by the way.
Apparently Murray’s performance was partly inspired by ads for Kirin Lager beer featuring Harrison Ford that he saw plastered all over Tokyo.
There’s a few different print ads with Ford for Kirin Lager, but they all have the same look, as if to say: “I can’t believe I’m shilling this crap.”
“With the money I make from these ads, I’m going to buy so many planes to crash.”
Yeah, but he feels the same way about the movies he makes.
“Although some aspects of the film are problematic in today’s world…”Mandatory inclusion in any AV club article about a film more than ten years old
You spelled “months” wrong.
Get your mind out of the gutter. There was no sense of “will they or won’t they”.
I probably won’t rewatch. I think it’s probably still a pretty good movie that I don’t like. For me it’s always been its tourist/Orientalism. It matches the pov of the leads is one argument, though I’d say I’m not sure they’re that aware, and the movie’s utilizing of it is the more important issue. It’s always been so lazy. And there’s a mean treak, most visible with how it handled the Anna Faris character, that’s really self-satisfied. (yadda yadda, its a reference to someone in Coppola’s life—it’s still a smear job) Or the lounge singer. What’s uncool or foreign is to laugh at, except when its cool and the movie—not the characters—deigns to show in soft lighting and approving soundscapes. Kimonos or the stylish young. Everything but the leads are a prop.I recently watched Tokyo Pop, and while that movie has plenty of gawking at lost in translation hijinks, it also manages to give the impression that Japan is a place. I bring it up because I found it surprising that this reaction is mostly based on what is more known now about Murray outside of the movie and more tacked on are issues that were present in the movie since always. The text that was always there, if you will, and not requiring a reassessment of the authors.
How this movie holds up is the subject of the latest episode of The Test of Time:
https://open.spotify.com/episode/7K9pxvCWeHQM74nDfYWFZp?si=211e9da2f74b4d1c
Everyone that goes to Japan (or most other countries) should save at least 1 meal to try to localized McD’s items. Other American fast food places maybe not so much. But McD’s for sure.
This was before my time but how is no one mentioning the age difference? This just seems gross. This Era also had Leon the Professional… was it just acceptable for middle age men to have fantasy encounters with female children?
I’ve always loved this movie, but didn’t get to visit Japan until 2016 when my wife was there on a long-term assignment with Coca Cola.One of the many things that have stuck with me was an example of the l-r swap. I visited my wife not long after she started, and we went to a baseball game at the Tokyo Dome. By coincidence, some of her co-workers (local Coke Japan employees) were at the same game. One co-worker texted my wife that they were sitting in “section 26, low 7″ and invited us to come say hi. We were confused, wondering “hmmm, ’low 7′, does that mean like ‘lower deck, area 7′ or something like that”? But Section 26 was easy enough to find, and when we got there we figured it out — they were sitting in row 7.Her colleague, who is Japanese, speaks English quite well, and had done like a year in college in the US. But even so, the l-r confusion is strong enough that she texted an l when she meant an r.The co-worker eventually became a good friend of my wife. The second time I visited, she and her husband took us for drinks at the Park Hyatt, the hotel in Lost in Translation — they’re big fans of the movie.
One of those okay films I never understood the barrels of affection for.
I had just come back from 3 years living in Japan, an hour outside Tokyo, so I lived this movie just because it reminded me of my life there. I need to watch it now that more time has passed.
I rewatched this last weekend and enjoyed it far more than I did back in the mid-2000s. At the time I was a teenager, being same age as ScaJ0, yet the movie didn’t connect with me at all.Watching it now in my late 30s, it clicked and it all worked for me this time. It’s a great movie and well worth revisiting.
Has the culture changed or has part of the culture changed?
For me, this film and Up In the Air get better everytime I watch it. Yes, it definitely holds up.