by Allan Fish
(USA 2003 106m) DVD1/2
So much ‘More Than This’
p Ross Katz, Sofia Coppola d/w Sofia Coppola ph Lance Acord ed Sarah Flack m Kevin Shields art Anne Ross, K.K.Barrett cos Nancy Steiner
Bill Murray (Bob Harris), Scarlett Johansson (Charlotte), Giovanni Ribisi (John), Anna Faris (Kelly), Fumihiro Hayashi,
Sofia Coppola’s fresh and funny masterpiece is that rarest of beasts; a film that plays with convention in a witty and original way and comes up fresh every time you see it. A film that is not merely about Japanese customs, Tokyo or indeed going to any foreign places, as these are merely the outer levels. At its lovely heart is a story of fate and being in the right place at the wrong time. Or just about the power of unlikely friendships and how a single night can alter your life.
The plot itself – young philosophy graduate accompanying her photographer husband to Tokyo befriends a middle aged ex-Hollywood star in town to shoot a whisky commercial and catch up with his drinking – is secondary to Coppola’s observant eye. From its opening shot it tantalises, with its camera all but embracing Johannson’s transparent pink-pantied behind (and it was her, not a body double). At first it may seem voyeuristic, but it’s a shot that like the film speaks volumes. A run of the mill May-September romance would normally lead to the obvious horizontal place, but though these characters share a bed, it’s merely to lie upon, while they drink, chat and flick through junk TV channels. That it never does lead to the obvious place is a testament to Coppola’s faith in not only Tokyo’s charm and in her own characters, but in her actors. Murray is quite magnificent as Bob, ambling from scene to scene with a perpetually fed-up expression faintly reminiscent of a subdued Alex Higgins, who only comes alive around his young companion. Many of his culture shock scenes make you cringe, but they’re hilarious; Murray in his hotel watching his old movies dubbed into Japanese as a crazy woman enters and asks him to “lip her stocking!”; Murray impersonating Roger Moore on cue on a bar stool (“I don’t get this close to the glass until I’m on the floor”); Murray opening his Fedex parcel of carpet swatches from his wife; and his embarrassed appearance on a TV show hosted by the Japanese answer to Graham Norton. It’s a truly great performance, but one more than matched by Johansson. After impressing in Ghost World, The Man Who Wasn’t There and Girl With a Pearl Earring, we finally have the real deal, an intelligent, real young woman; a performance all the more remarkable in that she was only eighteen at the time of shooting, convincingly in her early twenties. Unlike the ultra-thin airhead starlets of the day (personified by Anna Faris’ Kelly), she’s unafraid of having real curves and dressing how she likes. She’s all the more gorgeous for that and Coppola knows it, allowing the camera to drown in her unique beauty and dry intelligence. She’s stultified in a marriage she has come to loathe and just wants an escape, which is just what Murray presents her with; “I’m trying to organise a prison break, and I’m looking for an accomplice.” He’s no longer sitting as if petrified on his bed in dressing gown and slippers, he’s turning his garish shirts inside out, singing (or should that be making noise) in one of many Tokyo karaoke bars and falling in love, not so much with Johansson herself, but her spirit. Their official goodbye gives way to an impromptu final meeting in the crowded streets where Murray hugs her and whispers something inaudible in her ear. We don’t need to hear, of course, for it allows us to make our own minds up. Everything that needs saying is said by Johansson’s expressive tearful face.
Though Murray and Johansson are very much the soul of the film, they really are only Coppola’s voices, for it’s her acute observation that permeates every beautiful shot (courtesy of Lance Acord’s wonderful cinematography) of her billet doux to the craziest city on earth. If Murray may look like he’s been places, Johansson and Coppola are most definitely on the move. Nor will you be able to hear a certain song by Roxy Music the same way again. Make it Suntory time.
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Loved this movie. It’s one of the sublime mood pieces I’ve seen, a film that works on me emotionally like music – taking me to a place and letting me linger there without concern for anything but the particular moment and its glow. That said, the screenplay is actually quite well-written – “nothing happens” in a surprisingly sophisticated way and Coppola structures her characters’ encounters with subtlety for maximum effectiveness. There is an ebb and flow to the storytelling and here the rhythmic quality is also musical – I don’t know her methods, but Coppola’s films operate as if she composed them by instinct. Virgin Suicides is enticing, and Marie Antoinette was fun, but this is her masterpiece.
Very nice review, capturing a whiff of the film’s enchanted mood just right.
Meh. I sort of wish I could summon up enough feeling about this movie to actually hate it. If it inspired any extreme emotion in me, even in the negative, then I’d be able to at least begrudgingly respect the adulation it recieves. Instead, this was a movie that left me profoundly cold and unmoved, which is a pretty sad state of affairs for anything starring Bill Murray. Everything from the non-committal opening shot (if it were nude it’d be bold; if the panties were opaque it’d at least be a playful tease) to its unambiguously ambiguous ending (is there even a need to whisper a secret message on a city street where nobody else speaks your language?) seemed rather hollow to me, as though it were expecting an audience composed of nothing but empty-headed youngsters who’d never seen a real film before and needed something like this purely as a set of training-wheels on their way to weightier stuff. Maybe it’s because I’ve never cared for Scarlett Johannson (to my eyes, the most inexplicable cinematic darling this side of Liv “My Dad’s in Aerosmith” Tyler and Keira “Pouty Face” Kneightly), or maybe it’s because I’d already jumped on the Bill Murray-renaissance bandwagon for a film where it actually deserved the attention (“Take dead aim on the rich kids. Get them in the cross hairs and take them down”), or maybe it’s just because the director seemed to have inherited all the adulation rather than earned it herself. The film itself is more or less inoffensive, but I’d rather watch something I hate than sit through anything that leaves me this cold.
“An audience composed of nothing but empty-headed youngsters who’d never seen a real film before and needed something like this purely as a set of training wheels on their way to weightier stuff”. Wow Bob my exact same feelings for this overrated movie. Don’t see what all the fuss is about. I like the use of My Bloody Valentine in that one part.
There are films you can admire without “getting”, but this does not appear to be one of them. You have to fall under its spell before recognizing its virtues, it seems. Take the red pill…
Ah well, at least Bob likes Rushmore!
You’d need the combined efforts of Mr. Sherman, Doc Brown and the Frozen Donkey Wheel for effect to precede cause in the manner of which you’re speaking. Cinematic magic can take hold if the viewer recognizes virtues in a work in the first place, and only then may such a spell fallen under in the second place.
Subliminally perhaps, or are you suggesting that rational analysis triggers “cinematic magic”?
On the contrary, I think this is actually the way most viewers experience a work of art that truly enthralls them. Visceral before cerebral – pleasure usually precedes analysis, in some cases more so than in others. This film’s “magic”, as I suggested, works more like music. I usually don’t detect virtues in music and then enjoy it, I experience a rush of enjoyment and then, if I want, I can go back and trace the sources of that enjoyment. Lost in Translation works like that for me.
As a somewhat separate matter, I’m inclined to believe that it’s a construction where the structure only comes into focus when you understand the components – the brilliance of the assembly only makes sense if you appreciate how each part functions on its own, which either comes intuitively or it doesn’t. Sorry, it’s late and I’m not really up to discussing ontology right now, but I think what I’m hinting at is clear enough. Sounds like we may basically have a semantic disagreement here.
Look, I get what you’re trying to say– that you can dig a film without necessarily knowing or fully understanding why. I just felt that “falling under a film’s spell without recognizing its virtues” sounded suspiciously like “having an opinion about a movie before you see it”, something which I think happens far more often than most critics are willing to admit, for good or ill (I don’t remotely think that’s the case here, but still).
Ok I see (and don’t necessarily disagree – but very different from what I had in mind here with that phrase!). At any rate, looking back on it, I saw this in theaters and fell under its spell in a minor way, enjoying the mood but not thinking it a great movie. A few years later, I felt inclined to watch it again and ended up watching it over and over for several weeks (again the musical connection, like a pop song on “repeat”). Since then, I’ve been a fan.
Hell, maybe it’s just Scarlett’s pink undies after all…
Couldn’t agree with you more on this one, and Sam will back us up 100% on this one. For six months he was blasting My Bloody Valentine’s “Sometimes” and the Jesus and Mary Chain’s “Just Like Honey” every time I walked into the basement, vacation plans to Japan were made, and on several occasions sushi was served at Pasta Night, along with some Coppola family wine on several occasions. On viewing nine-and-a-half, in the bowels of the bomb shelter cinema alongside Jack “Sebastian” March, I watched him shed three tissues worth of tears after the heart-wrenching final whisper between young Scarlett and sad Bill. Its Oscar loss for best picture inspired a tirade which would surely have made a sailor blush.
just kidding. We’re on a journey to absurdity.
I thought Tokyo would be more interesting. A pretty banal movie about two insular Yanks, who don’t know loyalty or commitment, and hook-up out of boredom. Self-centered bourgeois angst masquerading as something deeper. About as bracing as a watered-down scotch.
Aye, Tony, I am with you lock, stock and barrel here.
Amen Tony
A very good film, wonderfully subtle film-making and a another great performance from the always great Bill Murray. That being said, I can’t say this film was at the level of other great romances from this decade, particularity Wong Kar Wai’s In the Mood for Love, Richard Linklater’s Before Sunset, Paul Thomas Anderson’s Punch Drunk Love (though something tells me I’m alone when I mention this underrated gem) and others. I do believe the film is a tad overrated, as well as it’s director, but the film did finally get Bill Murray a long overdue Oscar nomination (after being snubbed for better performances in Groundhogs Day and Rushmore, and later again in, what I felt was both a superior performance and film, though i might be in the minority, Broken Flowers).
Oh hell, Murray was better in “Ghostbusters” than anything here. I’ll take the relaxed, casual comic invention of that performance to the phoned-in jet lag and middle-age malaise on display here. Suntory time has long since passed, but the flowers are still standing.
Murray and Slimer rock in that underrated gem of cheesy 80’s cinema. I agree with you 100% percent even if your kidding.
Not a bit. I’m even somewhat forgiving of the faults of the second one– it’s nowhere near as good as the first, but it’s still fun. Really, the original “Ghostbusters” is a great film that’s often unfairly overlooked because of its popular success, nostolgia factor and the unholy trinity of sci-fi, horror and comedy genre pigeonholing. Beyond the script and stars, I especially dig Laszlo Kovac’s cinematography, Elmer Bernstein’s score and the whole New York City feel.
Yeah, an acquaintance once described it as a “guilty pleasure” but really it shouldn’t be guilty – brilliant writing, classic concept well-executed, one of the iconic comic performances from Bill Murray, and special effects that mostly hold up pretty well – certainly better than the CGI dreck of today will.
Nice use of locale, better than usual performance from a Saturday Night Live allumnai. I don’t know why its automatically assumed that performers from that show can act. Dan Ackroyd got lucky with DRIVING MISS DAISY (a turn that allowed his gift for impersonation to work in his benefit). Here, Murray, really just plays a watered down version of…. Well…. Murray. His best turns are when he can show slight examples of the comicaly bizarre and, that said, his best performance thus far is, without doubt, in Wes Anderson’s RUSHMORE. Aside from that, this film is, while not horrible, not all that interesting. I still can’t understand all the attention it grabbed at awards time.
Dennis, what did you think of Ackroyd in House of Mirth? I just saw that for the first time, and though the somewhat idiosyncratic casting got knocked by some, I thought it worked pretty well. His good-natured bumbling persona insured a complicated response (at least initially) to what otherwise could have been a singularly unsympathetic character.
Yes, Aykroyd’s best turn by far was in THOM.
Nah, Aykroyd’s finest performance is still in THE BLUES BROTHERS: “We’re on a mission from God.” Or when, he tries pick up Twiggy. Priceless…
I’ waiting for Sam to tear down this film (which I haven’t seen). I’ve already seen him do that at Goodfellas. Encore, Sam, Encore!
No need, Mini Me Dennis has already done it.
And don’t forget our resident Eeyores Bob and Tony… they have also chimed in with their usual “stamps of disapproval!”
I on behalf of all Eeyores take extreme exception to this deliberate slur. We Eeyores have a distinguished heritage and are renowned for our valor and courage under BS bombardment. Better an Eeyore than a member of our sworn enemy the Thought Police. Have you running dogs of the conventional wisdom ever reflected on the fact that running with the pack is the easy way, and that there is no comfort in fighting the pestilence of conformity? A pox on your smugness!
Eeyores live a long time. None of you has ever seen a dead Eeyore.
I’m not arguing that one needs to run with the pack, Tony, just making light of the fact that it’s like clockwork that you and Bob are likely to take contrary positions to Allan.
Like or hate whatever you want, as I want the same freedom myself. No need to take offense (if any was taken, which I actually assume there wasn’t)… it’s all in good fun. I find it quite funny.
No worries Dave. All in good fun.
I love the way that anyone and everyone can contradict Allan, but the moment I say a word I’m immediately lambasted. As for the “MINI ME” crack, I have my own mind, tastes, prefrences and loves. I don’t need Sam as a barometer, I can do my own thinking. As for disagreeing with this film… I don’t hate it. But, I don’t love it either and, certainly, all the hooplah that accompaniedf this movie at awards time was pretty over-the top. So, dear Allan, save you snide quips. If you want a punching bag on this film there are more than a few above that are more against it than me. If I’m Mini Me, you, most certainly are Dr. Evil. Just post the reviews and get on with it. LOL!!!!!!!!!!
Tell him off Dennis!!!!! Even if I’m a little upset at you for blasting Memento and Mullholland Dr in the last post lol.
Of course, as I know he is, Allan is probably sitting in front of his computer laughing his nuts off over the fact that he got me slightly riled up in my last comment bubble. Oh, the joys of landing at WONDERS IN THE DARK. Having a good laugh now, aren’t you, MR. FISH?
I wasn’t actually aiming to rile you, Dennis, it’s just a playful comment that you and Sam, share opinions 90% of the time.
I am laughing, Dennis, though not at that, but at the fact it’s 5am your time and you’re still/already up.
I will add this though. Aside from a few good performances from Murray (I suppose this one, and definately RUSHMORE would be the stand-outs), Dan Ackroyds superlative impersonation in DRIVING MISS DAISY and a few by Steve Martin (LITTLE SHOP OF HORRORS, THE SPANISH PRISONER)… Only two allumnai from the SATURDAY NIGHT LIVE classes have hinted the could go much further. JOHN BELUSHI, with his serio/comic turn in CONTINENTAL DIVIDE showed some steam and ADAM SANDLER (I think he’ll go furthest) with his almost pitch perfect turn in Paul Thomas Abderson’s PUNCH DRUNK LOVE. Aside from them, I guess you gotta give a few bats of an eye to EDDIE MURPHY’s once in a life-time shot in DREAMGIRLS. For my money, I’d bet the farm on Sandler. I really think he’s got magic written all over him. He just needs to find the right vehicle and role to explode with. Last years FUNNY PEOPLE hinted at his magic.
Eddie Murphy played a caricature in Dreamgirls and only adequately, Aykroyd was superb in DMD, but the film itself was a piece of shit, Belushi was a fun slob, but couldn’t act his way out of a burger box. As for Sandler, who knows. I loathe his comedies with a fiery vengeance (the only tolerable one was The Wedding Singer, and that only for Drew Barrymore and Billy Idol’s cameo), they’re about as funny as having one’s molars extracted through one’s arse. Yet he was good in PDL, excellent in Reign Over Me and good again in Funny People. Neither were major films, though to compare to Carrey in ESOTSM or TTS.
Comedians in straight roles is hardly a new concept, I recall Will Hay in The Big Blockade, Richard Pryor in Fingers & Blue Collar, Norman Wisdom in The Night They Raided Minsky’s, Chaplin in Limelight, Sellers in Lolita, Gleason in The Hustler and Requiem for a Heavyweight, etc, etc, etc.
“Reign Over Me” is pretty much worthless as a film, the worst and slopiest kind of 9/11 melodrama. But it does feature Fumito Ueda’s “Shadow of the Colossus”, one of the best video-games of the PS2 generation, as a prominent focal point, so it’s not all bad. On the whole, though, I’ll take that stupid, smutty movie Mike Bender did about Mariel Hemingway becoming addicted to lesbianism over that dreck.
Yeah I’ll never understand Allan, he lambastes many films I like while saying ‘Reign over Me’ is passable. Whatever.
I said he was excellent in Reign Over Me, not that the film was anything worthwhile, there is a difference. But it’s not worth the argument, so not worth it.
OK, that’s fair enough. And yes if neither of us (or the three of us) like the film it’s not worth talking about.
Great, great film. The comedy is a little too broad, but otherwise it’s pretty much perfect. Murray is amazing as usual, and ScarJo =❤
ALLAN-NO HARN, NO FOUL. As for me being up at such an ungodly hour, its as simple as this. My job requires me to be at work at 530am every morning. Combune the fact that I suffer from migraines and insomnia (migraines sometimes, insomnia all the time). Today it was a little bit of both and prerusing WITD takes my mind off of the pain of the migraine. Migraines, if you never had one, can register on the pain meter between 10 and 110. Today was a 15. I’ve actually suffered an 80 and, had that gone any further, would have had to hit the emergency room.
Oh I have had them, but rarely. DMD nearly caused a cerebral haematoma.
A great, great movie and one that I put at #5 on my own list. This is a movie that easily could have dragged into dreaded cheesy chick flick territory, but Coppola (and her screenplay) is talented enough to keep it from doing so. I agree with those that have said that Bill Murray is outstanding here and I think it is impressive that this is the same guy who played Carl Spackler in Caddyshack. Here he is subdued, but is still able to naturally producer humor with just facial expressions and tones.
In the end, though, I just find the whole movie very charming. Whether or not it is “deep” or not doesn’t matter for me in the end.
Ahh Dave I remember your list over at Goodfellas. You were going so strong with your first four films and then you unveiled this stinker lol. Just kidding of course, but I remember you had The Black Dahlia slightly lower on that list. I may be the only person that would rate it much higher than this nepotism special!!!
I wish I could say I enjoyed this film, but to be honest, despite all of the positives (interesting premise, Bill Murray, decent dialogue), I was BORED by this film.
I liked this film (I placed it at 43 in my decade list), I do like PUNCH DRUNK LOVE better (placed that at 38) better. Both films have more then enough charm to get them through. I can recall the ‘Roger Moore’ bit and chuckle right now.
I liked this enough that I’m surprised I’ve never given her MARIA ANTOINETTE a go. Maybe soon.
I do dislike Johannson quite a bit in general (and the same goes for Sandler if I’m going to mention PUNCH DRUNK LOVE) and it’s a shame the only other film I like her in, MATCH POINT is almost sure to not make this list.
Oh and what’s all this talk of Bill Murray without a QUICK CHANGE mention? Bastards!
Or “Caddyshack”, or “Where the Buffalo Roam”, or “The Razor’s Edge”, or “Hamlet”, or…
…yeah, you get the idea.
“Lost in Translation” < pretty much anything else from Bill Murray's career (except, say, for "Charlie's Angels").
sorry, Bob, but that’s just wrong. That’s butchering furry animals in front of small children wrong. As wide of the mark as most of the free kicks at this World Cup.
You’re right. “Charlie’s Angels” is a better movie, too.
I HAVE TO BE LEAVING… BUT, I WON’T LET THAT COME BETWEEN US… OK?
Well, JAFB, Dennis, Jamie, Tony, Bob, Joel, Jeopardy Girl and others, yes I am no fan of LOST IN TRANSLATION, despite the shock therapy of four viewings in the theatre to bring me over to the ranks of the overwhelmingly favorable critical concensus. Like JG, I found it a tedious sit every time, and didn’t buy it’s cultural lyricism and moody underpinnings. Ms. Coppola received far more praise for this cinematic stagnation than she rightfully deserved, and Murray’s work was really in the service of one of the most torturous films we’ve ever seen that received this level of praise.
I don’t get it, and I fear I never will, despite the fact that I love many mood pieces. Still, I recognize that I am in the minority, so maybe it’s me.
Oh God Sam don’t tell me you paid full admission four times!! I’m sure you have some crazy frequent customer deal going. I give you credit for not buckling to the ugly pull of conformity opinion. I will say that Sophia is a better director than actress.
I dunno, she was pretty good as a non-speaking extra in “The Phantom Menace”. Much better than her starring role in “The Godfather Part III”.
I do have to say the “conformity” card is a bit over-played here. The overall consensus was positive (which I like, for obvious reasons) but “consensus” is too strong a word for a film that divided viewers so starkly. It really is a love/hate type of movie – I know Bob tried to step outside of that paradigm, but I think he fell right back into it! I know quite a few people who love it as much as I do, but also a hell of a lot of people who absolutely loathe it. What’s more, the like/loathe line is actually fairly hard to predict. At any rate, even before I was as enamored of it as I became, among the buzzed-about films at the end of the year, I would have taken it in a heartbeat over Return of the King or Mystic River, two films I found extremely overrated (though one of them is surely coming up on the countdown).
I have never seen someone get shot and die more unconvincingly than Sophia in The Godfather Part 3. It was like she had a minor abrasion and decided to take a nap to sleep it off.
“I will say that Sophia is a better director than actress.”
Yes, I’m sure she’s also a better golfer, mechanic, airplane pilot, sumo wrestler…
I thought the end of Part III worked pretty well even with Sofia’s embarrassing acting. Credit Pacino, Walter Murch (I think it was him who cut out the sound for the scream), and the accumulated memories of two masterpieces. (For a while, I tried to convinced myself that Part III was great if flawed, but in the end no dice – still, it’s not horrible just rather weak.)
HaHa MovieMan very true. Lets take bets on when she will have her own winery as well!!
Pacino’s silent scream was very powerful. That scene gets to me every time. At least he died in a beautiful Sicilian tomato garden.
Pacino and the combined efforts of Murch & Cav-Pag rescues the ending from outright waste. Sofia’s death doesn’t quite earn that devastating end, but we can look the other way and say it’s all worth it. And also– isn’t that an orange grove at the very end?
Hm. At any rate, am I the only one who still would kinda like to see the planned “Godfather Part IV”, with a young Sonny’s coming of age paralleled with Andy Garcia ushering the Corleone family into a final, Pablo Escobar-style destruction?
Put that it in the “would-have-fun-watching-despite-it’s-being-absolutely-unnecessary” category (one of the reasons I distinguish between “favorite” and “best”). Anyway, the conversation here might be spent but worry not, Bob – you’ve got another film to bash now (I’ll sit this one out, having said my piece a while back)…
In defense of Sofia Coppola, I did really enjoy The Virgin Suicides.
MAURIZIO-ALLAN and I have sparred MANY A TIME and we still remain pals. He gets an ant up his ass from time to time and, usually, Sam, myself, BOB or TONY have to deflect the slings and arrows. Then again, I’ve been known to get cranky here from time to time as well and the retaliation coming back at me, I guess, is justified. One things for sure… There is no boundary here at WITD. Other sites may employ “polite” debate and thats cool. However, THIS is the place to really let loose, spout theory and opinion and learn from the yelling. There’s really nothing ALLAN hasn’t said to me. I’m kinda used to it by now. If you really wanna cheer someone on then cheer SAM. His fights and arguments are legenday (they go on for pages sometimes) and frequently get vicious. Personally, I find their fighting hysterical and entertaining. But, then again, I’ve known Sam for almost 20 years and he has been a never ending source of constant, educational and absolutely comedic amusement to me. They’re perfect together. LOL!
Add me to the popular throngs who love this film. I will admit to be caught under its spell as well. There is something about the Wong Kar-Wai-esque mood and atmosphere that Coppola achieves with this film that gets me every time. Also, Murray and Johannsen have an undeniable chemistry which is so hard to get just right – a couple either have it or they don’t. You can’t fake that and in this film they do and their scenes together are obviously a large part of its appeal.
I also think that Murray is fantastic in this film. While he may have been better in RUSHMORE and many other films (my fave of his is still STRIPES) but there is something he does in LOST IN TRANSLATION that is pretty wonderful, like how he reacts to what is going on around him. Watch the scenes where he hangs out with Scarlett and her friends when they go out for a night on the town. Pay attention to how he reacts to what they do and then does his thing. It’s something pretty special, I think.
Plus, as a HUGE fan of The Jesus and Mary Chain, I love how Coppola uses “Just Like Honey” at the end of the film. So, there’s that, too.