Product Details

• Amazon Sales Rank: #3854 in DVD
• Released on: 2004-02-03
• Rating: R (Restricted)
• Aspect ratio: 1.85:1
• Formats: AC-3, Anamorphic, Color, Dolby, DTS Surround Sound, Dubbed, DVD-Video, Subtitled, Widescreen, NTSC
• Original language: English, French
• Subtitled in: Spanish, French
• Dubbed in: French
• Number of discs: 1
• Running time: 102 minutes

Amazon.com
Like a good dream, Sofia Coppola's Lost in Translation envelops you with an aura of fantastic light, moody sound, head-turning love, and a feeling of déjà vu, even though you've probably never been to this neon-fused version of Tokyo. Certainly Bob Harris has not. The 50-ish actor has signed on for big money shooting whiskey ads instead of doing something good for his career or his long-distance family. Jetlagged, helplessly lost with his Japanese-speaking director, and out of sync with the metropolis, Harris (Bill Murray, never better) befriends the married but lovelorn 25-year-old Charlotte (played with heaps of poise by 18-year-old Scarlett Johansson). Even before her photographer husband all but abandons her, she is adrift like Harris but in a total entrapment of youth. How Charlotte and Bill discover they are soul mates will be cherished for years to come. Written and directed by Coppola (The Virgin Suicides), the film is far more atmospheric than plot-driven: we whiz through Tokyo parties, karaoke bars, and odd nightlife, always ending up in the impossibly posh hotel where the two are staying. The wisps of bittersweet loneliness of Bill and Charlotte are handled smartly and romantically, but unlike modern studio films, this isn't a May-November fling film. Surely and steadily, the film ends on a much-talked-about grace note, which may burn some, yet awards film lovers who "always had Paris" with another cinematic destination of the heart. --Doug Thomas

From The New Yorker
Nothing much happens in the new film by the writer-director Sofia Coppola, but she has first-rate abilities as an observer and as a rueful comedian, and much of the movie is sweetly funny and satisfying. In Tokyo, a burned-out American movie star named Bob Harris (Bill Murray) shows up to appear in a whiskey ad. Stranded in a sleekly pompous modern hotel, he can't connect with anything or even sleep, but he does hook up (chastely) with a very young woman, Charlotte (Scarlett Johansson), whose fashion-photographer husband (Giovanni Ribisi) is rapidly slipping away from her. Both Bob and Charlotte are in emotional limbo, and they become an odd, inappropriate couple. Murray has never been this quiet, this wary, this subtly acid before-or this warm, either. The drama of the movie, such as it is, lies in seeing just how much he will respond and when. -David Denby
Copyright © 2006 The New Yorker

Customer Reviews

Beautiful Feeling of Disconnection
I can't believe so many people gave this a bad review. In my mind, this is the best movie ever made that exemplifies the disconnected, lonely feeling one experiences even among millions of people when undergoing an existential crisis. I still remember the cool feeling I got the first time I watched this. I felt as disconnected and hopelessly drifting as both Bill Murray and Scarlett Johanssen, and Sofia Coppola managed to link this feeling with a sense of the noble beauty of loneliness that lingers after the credits have finished rolling.

This movie is stylish, funny, deep, and real, and for all of these reasons, it deserves a top spot on any true filmgoer's list.

Overrated
All men recall a woman from their past that sticks in their mind, not as some drop dead gorgeous goddess nor as some hideous dog that made them want to retch, but simply because they were in some way, however minor, interesting. That interestingness may have been their looks, their quirks, their persona, or some indefinable `otherness'. Well, that's what the film Lost In Translation is- it's not a bad film, nor nearly as good as its reputation proclaims, but it is unlike just about any other Hollywood or indie film to come down the pike in the last few decades.
That it was nominated for and won a screenwriting Oscar for director Sofia Coppola is just plain silly since the film's resonance and character creation comes from its visual images, not its too spare writing. An aging, former American film star named Bob Harris (Bill Murray) comes to Tokyo to film an ad for a brand of scotch. Like many American film stars in real life who refuse such stateside, lest oddly believe they'll dampen their credibility as actors, he accepts the enormous sum the Japanese sponsors offer him- $2 million- for a week or so's work. There he meets the Gen Y wife of a hip young photographer named Charlotte (Scarlett Johansson). They have little in common save their shared loneliness and insomnia when Charlotte's husband John (Giovanni Ribisi) goes off for a few days on a shoot. Charlotte is a typically aimless young soul who peripatetically bounces between wanting to write or photograph, & seeking an outlet for her philosophy degree from Yale, while Bob is a lethargic middle aged man who's not so much in crisis mode as he is in ennui to the cosmos.... Still, as stated, the movie's visuals are its real charm- the scenes of Tokyo's night life, neon, the odd angles that Charlotte looks down upon life from in her hotel room, and especially a beautifully filmed, yet hauntingly lonely shot of Bob playing golf in the foreground of Mount Fuji, add almost enough poetic resonance to the characters that the script lacks to pull off a viewer's belief in their romance. Sofia's brother made a far superior film a few years ago that dealt with many of the same themes of alienation. CQ, for whatever reasons, did not seem to strike a chord the way Lost In Translation did. The reason for that is probably because CQ was not as `serious' an art film as Translation.

In my top 5 movies of all time.
I am mainly submitting this review because of the horrible number of '1 star' reviews.

I loved this movie so much, and it means so very much to me now, years later. I can only thank Sofia for making it, and Scarlett and Bill for being so perfect.

This movie is a masterpiece that I hold near my heart.

Beautiful.