Bill Murray is Bob Harris, an aging actor whose star is on the wane, cashing in on his celebrity in Japan to hawk whiskey in a Japanese commercial. All he has to do is strike a pose, say a few words and look suave. If only he could understand his Japanese director? He and Bob act like they’re at opposite ends of a line playing telephone with an interpreter as their go between. Neither one is sure what the other one is trying to say. Writer director Sofia Coppola’s newest movie is not called "Lost in Translation" for naught.

The title has another meaning - the things lost between people who talk around each other rather than to each other. Bob’s wife calls him at odd hours to get some decorating tips for the house. He says he misses her and to give his best to the kids, but they’re only words. Home, one can surmise, is a refuge from work. Once Bob is out of the studio and onto the streets of Tokyo, he tries to escape his sponsor’s entourage and his celebrity. If he is to be bored, he wants to be bored on his own terms. Enter the pert, perceptive young blonde across a crowded bar. Has he seen her before?

Scarlett Johanssen is the much younger Charlotte, the wife living in the shadow of her hyperactive husband (Giovanni Ribisi), a freelance photographer on assignment in Japan. Sometimes she hangs on his arm like an ornament, but more often than not she’s out sightseeing. She and Bob ride the same elevator, walk the same streets, pass each other in the hallways of the hotel, and drink in the same bar.

Charlotte has a few things in common with Bob: she feels adrift in a foreign culture, is emotionally out of touch with her spouse, and is literally bored to death. Common language and a chance encounter unite her with Bob in a common purpose: to break loose from their hotel hell.

In the hands of a male director Bob and Charlotte’s story could have easily degenerated into another one of those May December romantic fantasies where the old guy beds a woman twenty to thirty years his junior halfway though the movie. But Sofia Coppola’s sophomore effort has a bittersweet sense of reality devoid of fantasy or manufactured feelings. When Bob and Charlotte connect, it’s like two kids who bond instantly in their childish enthusiasm. They turn karaoke bars and arcades into their own personal playgrounds. When they part it’s like two army buddies on their last day of servitude. Except they are not Army buddies.

The growing attraction between Bob and Charlotte are revealed through subtle gestures and the look of longing in their eyes. And just when you think they might consummate their relationship, Bob trumps their feelings by falling back on his celebrity to get him through the night. "Lost in Translation" ends on a melancholy note of unrequited love that still tugs at the heart even though you see it coming. It’s not an easy task but Sofia Coppola pulls it off.

Copyright 2003

"Tootsie" (1982) - Dustin Hoffman is an unemployed actor who can’t get a job as a man so he auditions as a woman for a soap opera and becomes the show’s star in this comedy classic. Murray appeared un-credited but not unnoticed as Hoffman’s hilarious roommate who dispenses some hilarious unsolicited pearls of wisdom.

"Ghostbusters" (1984) - Murray is a one of three paranormal psychologists who search out ghosts like roach exterminators. The scene with Murray trying to hit on a female volunteer by administering electric shocks to her male counterpart is classic.

"What About Bob" (1991) - Murray is off the wall as a needy psychiatric patient who not only drives his newly appointed psychiatrist nuts. With Richard Dreyfuss as the befuddled shrink matching Murray tit for tat every step of the way. Hilarious!

"Rushmore" (1998) - Murray plays it straight as a tycoon who befriends a high school student who has an uncontrollable crush on one of his teachers. When Murray falls for her, he is seen as a rival and becomes the victim of some inventive and sometimes dangerous pranks. Co-written by Owen Anderson with the director Wes Anderson.