Two of a Lonely Kind
When we first meet Charlotte, she’s curled up in a windowsill, as is her wont, looking out over a Shinjuku thoroughfare at night. She can’t sleep, either. Both of these people are in relationships yet they’re emotionally isolated just the same. Charlotte’s snoring husband, John, played by Giovanni Ribisi, is a photographer who consistently neglects her, giving her little dismissals like, “I gotta go to work,” as he remains absorbed in his own professional pursuits. In the hotel, Bob spots Charlotte on the elevator, and it’s not exactly love at first sight, but she gives him a soft smile and then she’s gone. Ships that pass in the night.
The Issue of Representation
It’s not always productive to apply genre labels, but Lost in Translation is as good a romantic comedy-drama as there ever was. It’s a movie that mingles yucks with yearning, chucklesome Murray moments with forlorn window gazes. Yet the film’s universal themes are also buried under a cosmetic layer that might not always appeal to everyone outside a narrow subset of well-to-do introspective types. Nominated for Best Picture, Best Director, Best Actor, and Best Original Screenplay at the Academy Awards, the film is firmly anchored in the authorial perspective of its writer-director. But how well does the movie play in the real Tokyo?
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