Bob Harris is an aging and washed up movie star that has flown to Tokyo to do a TV whiskey commercial shoot. He has lost all purpose in life and is hitting a midlife crisis where he does not know what he wants from life anymore. Charlotte is the very young wife of a photographer who is also in Tokyo to do a photo shoot and she also seems to be hitting a crisis in her life where she is not sure why she married and if this is what she wants to do with her life. Bob and Charlotte meet randomly as they both can not sleep faced with all the things they would rather avoid and have taken to drinking to forget their troubles. A kinship is quickly asserted, as they both seem to be facing the same problems in their lives from unhappiness in their marriages to the fact they can no longer find any meaning in life. So the two who have so much in common and are cooped up in the same hotel end up spending a week together hanging our and going a soul searching missions together as they try and find their places in the scheme of things again.

There seems to be two types of low budget independent films, the first being an enthralling, dramatic tale of human emotions that just absolutely draws you in and amazes you. The second type is the slower more morose type of drama that is exceedingly slow and boring as the movie gets too caught up in its own image as a movie that is only about drama and forgets to tell a story and entertain it audience. Sadly Lost in Translation is the latter as the movie seems to never move beyond its characters and tell a story, instead plodding along with the drama of their emotions and never accomplishing anything. The movie is not only very slow and morose but it is all quite boring at times as there is nothing happening to anyone one anything. I know Bill Murray is supposed to be playing this sardonic, morose character but I craved any sign of emotion or humanity from him, which he finally delivers for 5 seconds at the end of the film. That is an incredible amount of time to build up to a five second smile and left me totally unsatisfied and wishing when the movie finally got interesting it did not have to end. But it did and I found myself wondering why they even made this movie as they don’t really tell a story instead they try and show emotion by excluding it the entire film tell that one brief moment. Yes, the movie can be powerful and moving at times but is it enough to make up for an otherwise dry and boring movie, sadly it is not.
2 stars out of 5