Review of Lost in Translation (2003) by Johna — 01 Jul 2009

Lost in translation is one of those movies that makes a person feel good for watching it. most of its viewers love its small "Anti Hollywood" feel, but BELIEVE me, aside from being a respectable piece of art (at best), lost in translation really doesnt offer much more to its viewers then that nice little indie feel.

the problem with the movie is that there isnt enough character development involved. at no point did I as a viewer have a specific feeling for anyone in the movie because theres really not enough that I knew about them as people.

its hard to say this movie does much more then offer the occasional chuckle. the characters are too distant to be relatable so of course when they say something funny it feels like a sad attempt to be witty.

im not asking that every movie have characters that I can identify with, but its really important that at some point in a movie the audience member has a see where the character is coming from. this movie is beautifully acted.

the only problem is that they play roles of people that no one really wants to see. these are 2 very distant people who eventually come together to make sense of it all, but its hard to think that the director does a very good job in showing the audience any of that.

at no point later on in the movie are these characters really more developed then they were to begin with. for what its worth the movie did have a small amount of its dry humor, but in NO WAY is this movie a comedy.

(NO SPOILERS AHEAD....) the ending is much different from the rest of the film and just for a second the audience gets a little piece of emotion. and you really see the characters for who they are. problem is the entire rest of the movie never set us up for such an ending.

nobody wants a romantic happy ending garbage heap, but this movie was just so fixated on trying to be real that it just ended up being boring. as a viewer I felt that I was finally given the ending only because the director knew its what I wanted to see, and NoT because it was the actual direction the movie was meant to take.

life doesnt always have a clear cut road and there arent always yes or no answers. this movie tries so hard to convey that message, but from actor to audience, somewhere in between the message seems to have been Lost in Translation.