Lost in Translation

"Lost in Translation, the highly successful movie by filmmaker Sofia Coppola which won an Oscar for Best Original Screenplay and was nominated for Best Actor, Best Director, and Best Picture, is certainly deserving of its accolades. Starring Bill Murray (Ghostbusters) and a young Scarlett Johansson (Black Widow), the film captures feelings of loneliness, sadness, isolation, and that strange sense of not belonging. This is all seen through the relationship between Murray and Johansson's characters, who are spending time in Tokyo, Japan. He is a fading actor who takes a job doing a commercial for a drink. She is the "model wife" of a photographer. From this emptiness, the director plays with the possibilities of meetings and partings, joys and sorrows, losses and recoveries. It is worth noting that the film, on some levels, dialogues with Spike Jonze's drama Her, as Coppola and Jonze were married at the time and the director has said more than once that she was a "model wife" - the same situation as Scarlett Johansson's character. Watching the two films back-to-back is a great experience."