Customer Reviews

Intolerable Cruelty/Lost in Translation

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I confess to being a big fan of the Coen brothers, which is why I was surprised at my response to "Intolerable Cruelty". With a cast to die for, it has all the makings of a terrific film. Unfortunately, that is about as far as it gets, as the cast cannot undo what has been done by a screenplay that is seriously flawed, due to its inability to decide what type of film it should be. Unfortunately, it looks as if the director could not make up his mind either, producing a film that is neither fish nor fowl.

At first, I thought that it would be a screwball type of comedy, with George Clooney in the role that would have gone to Cary Grant in the golden age of filmmaking. Then, it seems to take another direction altogether, as if it were supposed to be a romantic comedy with a dark side or simply satire gone awry. Who knows? The Coen brothers surely don't. The film lacks a total surety of identity that kills it, despite the stellar cast. It is a flop, pure and simple.

The plot line is a fairly basic one. It is about a slick, greedy and grasping, unscrupulous matrimonial attorney (George Clooney), the kind that gives all lawyers a bad name, and a greedy and grasping gold digging beauty (Catherine Zeta-Jones), who gives all beautiful women a bad name. Their paths cross, and the chase is on. Unfortunately, the viewer does not give a rat's behind about either one of them. There is nothing that would ingratiate them to the viewer, due to the two dimensional, leaden screenplay to nowhere in which laughs are few and far between.

If you are a die hard Coen brothers fan, as I am, do yourself a favor and, rather than buy this film, rent it first. You will thank me for this advice, once you have seen this film.

"Lost in Translation" is a film that both my daughter and I were interested in seeing, given the acclaim that Bill Murray's performance had drawn. Moreover, the film itself had drawn critical acclaim. So, when my daughter was home from college one weekend, we decided to hunker down and watch it together. When we both fell asleep while watching it, we decided that we were just tired. So, we decided to give it another go around the next evening. Well, it was not much better the second time around, though we managed to avoid falling asleep, yet again.

Quite frankly, if Sophia Coppola, the writer and director of this film, were not the daughter of legendary director Francis Ford Coppola, I am convinced that this film would have quickly vanished without a trace. In fact, I doubt that it would even have been made. When her acting career fizzled, after making her less than memorable acting debut in her father's film "Godfather III", Sophia Coppola apparently turned her hand to directing and was let loose upon an unsuspecting public.

While this film has good production values, it simply meanders along in a loosey-goosey sort of way. If focuses upon two individuals, Americans who find themselves in Tokyo, alienated from their surroundings and, seemingly, from life in general. One of these individuals is Bob Harris, a film actor on a career downslide, who now finds himself shilling whiskey in Japan for mega bucks, while his movie career is at an impasse. The other is a beautiful twenty-five year old woman, a Yale Graduate with a degree in philosophy, who is in Japan with her husband, a photographer who is working on a shooting assignment.

Bob Harris, played with wry bemusement by Bill Murray, is a man who is alienated from his family and, quite frankly, just plain lonely. His is a stark universe, as he seems to have a myopic view on life, seeing little beyond his luxury hotel's bar, where he like to go and drink. Charlotte, played with surprising maturity and flair by eighteen year old Scarlett Johansson, feels bereft and set adrift, as she struggles to keep herself occupied while her husband is ostensibly working. It is these two souls whose worlds collide, coloring their perspectives on life when an unlikely bond forms between them.

The film, which takes place in Tokyo, Japan, appears to mock the Japanese. Its stereotypic portrayal of the Japanese people, generally as buffoons, is reprehensible and a cheap joke. Sophia Coppola apparently thinks that the way Japanese people speak English is funny, as it is a running, unfunny joke through out the film. Since the film takes place in Japan, perhaps it might have been funnier to see Bob (or Charlotte) attempt to speak Japanese, rather than turn Bob into the quintessential ugly American.

The film meanders along lacking a definitive narrative and any real profundity of thought. While there is definition about the characters' exterior selves, the film never delves into their inner selves in defining their present state of affairs. There are no big or traditional cinematic moments. Unfortunately, there are no small ones either, as there is really no introspection by either of the two protagonists. This is a film that viewers will either love or hate. I fall into the latter category. "Lost in Translation" is simply lost on me.