It’s nighttime in Tokyo. In the back of a car, a man awakens and beholds the city around him—a glorious vortex of sleek surfaces and gleaming lights. But by the time he reaches his hotel, the power of the future-shock architecture is overshadowed by a message from his wife: “You forgot Adam’s birthday. I’m sure he’ll understand.”
In another part of the hotel, a woman sits on a windowsill while her husband sleeps. She wakes him, but mere seconds pass before he resumes his slumber and his snoring. So the woman sits up, her features set in an unusual expression—a hazy, serious look for which a proper word has yet to be invented.
What the woman and the man from the car don’t realize is that this is no ordinary night. They don’t know that this is the start of a journey as towering as Tokyo’s skyscrapers. They don’t know that their lives are about to change. And neither did I.
I was 14 when I first saw Sofia Coppola’s “Lost in Translation”; my mom brought a DVD of the movie home from the Multnomah County Library and skipped over the R-rated bits (including a sojourn to a strip club). I was a reluctant viewer, an action-obsessed teenager who would have rather been watching “Attack of the Clones” (I had not yet realized the profound truth that any movie in which Hayden Christensen and Natalie Portman flirt belongs in the spice mines of Kessel).
But something happened: I became enraptured and terrified. What Coppola’s two protagonists, Charlotte (Scarlett Johansson) and Bob (Bill Murray), were to each other (aside from fellow guests at Park Hyatt Tokyo) wasn’t clear, but I couldn’t bear the idea of them parting from each other, even though it felt inevitable. Them being together seemed like the most important thing in the world.
For years, I have tried to explain why Coppola’s film means more to me than any other, but I have never fully succeeded. I write this article with faith that I can do it now, that I have learned enough about Coppola’s masterwork (and myself). So pack your bags, take a sip of Suntory, and keep your ears open for whispers. We’re going into the dreamy, enveloping world of “Lost in Translation”—not only as it is, but as I remember, know, and feel it.
Bob Harris used to be an action star (he was in a film called “Sunset Odds” in which, we are told, he did his own driving). But that was a long time ago. When asked what he’s doing in Tokyo, he answers (with a mixture of amusement, bluntness, and shame that is irrevocably Murray), “A couple things. Taking a break from my wife, forgetting my son’s birthday, and getting paid two million dollars to endorse a whiskey when I could be doing a play somewhere.”
While Bob is oddly tickled by his misfortunes, Charlotte (we never learn her last name) is drowning in hers. Depressed, unemployed, and married to an unctuous photographer named John (Giovanni Ribisi), she wanders the city, peering into any world (a temple, a press conference, an arcade) that seems superior to her own.
If Bob and Charlotte weren’t in the same movie, they might have continued to miserably drift; in “Lost in Translation,” their wanderings overlap. They make eye contact in an elevator, chat at a bar in Park Hyatt, and run into each other while wearing matching hotel bathrobes. Add all these moments together and they equal Charlotte inviting Bob to join her and some friends for a night on the town (while John is working in the nearby city of Fukuoka), an invitation he quietly accepts.
And what a night it is. They go to a club where sparkly lights are projected across balloons, they playfully outrun a guy with a BB gun, and they join Charlotte’s friend Charlie (Fumihiro Hayashi) for dancing and karaoke. Charlotte sings “Brass in Pocket” (she definitely wants some of Bob’s attention), while Bob goes for Elvis Costello’s “(What’s So Funny ‘Bout) Peace Love and Understanding” and Roxie Music’s “More Than This.”
“More Than This” kicks off with Charlotte’s jokingly solemn introduction (“Ladies and gentleman, Mr. Bob Harris”) and Bob’s sarcastic reply (“Thanks. This is hard”). Yet the cheekiness fades as Bob sings, “More than this/You know there’s nothing/More than this/Tell me one thing/More than this/Oh there’s nothing,” tremulously emphasizing each word. Unlike Charlotte and Charlie, Bob is old enough to know that there really is nothing more than this—nothing more than connecting with other people when you least expect it and finding a window into their lives.
“Lost in Translation” has been described as the story of an unconsummated romance, which never felt right to me. It’s not that I believe that Coppola was telling the story of a purely platonic friendship (“friends” don’t typically watch “La Dolce Vita” on TV together in the middle of the night). It’s that words like “friendship” and “romance” have always seemed too diminutive to encapsulate what Charlotte and Bob share.
So what kind of relationship do they have? If you want an answer, look at the two most telling parts of the film: the beginning and the end. “Lost in Translation” may star Americans, but it features zero scenes set in the United States. Starting with the opening shot of Charlotte’s backside on her bed at the hotel and the introduction of Bob in the back of the car, we are immersed not in their lives, but their lives at this particular moment and in this particular place.
And both the moment and the place have their own rules. Would a middle-aged movie star be friends with a no-name, 20-something philosophy grad back home? Maybe, maybe not. But when Charlotte and Bob meet in “Lost in Translation,” they have two crucial things in common: They are both Americans in a foreign city and they are both profoundly lonely (not least of all because Bob’s once fulfilling marriage is crumbling and Charlotte’s spirit is being suffocated by the faithless, egocentric John).
Coppola understands that there are far worse things than loneliness (as viewers of scaldingly bleak Coppola films like “The Virgin Suicides” and “The Beguiled” can attest). She also understands that isolation can hollow you out, making you feel pointless and worthless. That’s how Charlotte and Bob feel and that’s why the power of their bond is amplified. It isn’t just a relationship; it’s a reprieve.
That doesn’t change the fact that their lives are questions that their friendship can’t fully answer. Even after finding solace with Bob, Charlotte wanders to Kyoto and spies on a wedding, watching as the groom takes the bride’s hand with solemn tenderness. The yearning in Charlotte’s eyes reminds us that while she has experienced marriage literally, she hasn’t experienced it spiritually. That journey still eludes and awaits her.
Then there are the phone calls from Bob’s wife, Lydia (voiced with passive-aggressive bravado by the film’s costume designer, Nancy Steiner). Bob isn’t blind to his duty to Lydia and his kids—the idea of him forsaking them for Charlotte barely feels possible (no one wants to think of Scarlett Johansson as a homewrecker).
Yet we don’t know Bob’s family. We know Charlotte and we know that while what she and Bob have experienced together may be ordinary in some respects, it isn’t common. We can’t stand the thought of their inevitable goodbye because like them, we’re terrified of the wondrous shriveling back into the mundane.
Near the end of “Lost in Translation,” the pain of Charlotte and Bob’s imminent parting manifests in a spat involving sushi and a sleazy lounge singer. But that fades, leaving only anguish. “When are you leaving?” Charlotte asks Bob. “Tomorrow,” he says shakily.
Soon enough, tomorrow is here. We see Bob dressed in a suit, standing at his window at daybreak. We see him and Charlotte saying a clumsy goodbye in the lobby. We see him watch her face disappear behind golden elevator doors as they close.
Later, Bob looks out of the window of the car taking him to the airport and spots a flash of blonde hair on a busy street. “Let me out,” he tells the driver. Swiftly, he follows Charlotte. “Hey, you,” he calls. Then it all comes pouring out. Charlotte and Bob embrace each other, coming undone. For a long moment, all they can do is hold each other, channeling everything that they haven’t been able to say into that hug.
Finally, Bob whispers something. “Okay,” Charlotte replies. And with that, he leaves with a smile and she walks on, the confident beats of the Jesus and Mary Chain’s “Just Like Honey” on the soundtrack giving weight to her every step.
Years ago, I was listening to an episode of the YouTube show Collider Movie Talk. The panelists were mulling their favorite movies of all time and one of them conceded that a yet-to-come masterpiece might dethrone their top pick, “Jurassic Park.” But I don’t think it works like that—at least not for me. I believe that finding your favorite movie is like finding your true love. It’s destiny.
And destiny doesn’t have to be fully understood. I have rarely wanted to know what Bob whispered; all that has ever mattered to me is that he and Charlotte are able to express what they mean to one another, an act that leaves both of them rejuvenated. When Bob returns to the car in the final scene and calmly tells his driver to go on, he’s no longer hiding beneath a blanket of deadpan self-pity. And as for Charlotte, she’s not alone on the windowsill anymore. The last time we see her, she’s striding purposefully down a crowded street.
I’ll be honest: in my own life, I’m not there. But I have learned that there will always be a karaoke night whenever you least expect it. You just have to be ready for it; you just have to believe in the idea of a karaoke night. I do, just as I believe in the promise of that whisper and the promise of the film’s final shot: Bob’s car on a freeway, smoothly and steadily driving into the future.
