This is perhaps the first knockdown, drag-out, no-holds-barred, no referee steel cage match in Critics Over Coffee history....AND, it all took place in cyberspace; the better to keep Our Intrepid Critics from lobbing scone crumbs and hot cups of swamp water at each other. Jill's brew of choice for this match-up: A&P Eight O'Clock Hazelnut. Gabriel's brew: Sumatra Dark Roast.

J: Here's further proof that I don't live on the same plane of reality as most people. I saw LOST IN TRANSLATION last night. Liked it as a film, loved Bill Murray's performance, loved the way it was constructed, hated the story.

Perhaps it's just my age talking, but once again here is a story of a man in a midlife crisis (at least they admit it), wife is inevitably an unempathetic shrew (that's made quite clear) who develops this connection with a lonely 20-year-old. Why does he even have to go make this TV commercial? The implication is because he has to keep up with aging wifey's spending habits. Maybe aging wifey is spending money because her life is 24 hours of caring about the needs of other people -- kids and her husband who obviously is in need of something no one person could possibly give him -- not even a pretty 20-year-old -- if she had to deal with him for more than the 4 days this movie takes place over. That everyone is calling this a beautiful love story quite frankly makes me ill. Who needs male directors to treat middle-aged women badly? We have young female directors to do it for us.

On the plus side, Coppola has the makings of a great filmmaker. The film is lyrical, and like The Virgin Suicides, is primarily about mood. Bill Murray, for all that this is really just an older version of his character from GROUNDHOG DAY, is terrific. Scarlett Johanson has very little to do but be pretty and young, but after all, that's all that matters in this world, isn't it? I resent having to fight my way past the fact that this is yet another story of a guy in midlife crisis finding true love, albeit nonsexual love, with a 20-year-old to get to the quality of the film.

G: It did occur to me, after seeing it, that you were probably going to hate LOST IN TRANSLATION, for these very reasons.

J: I didn't hate it. My problem is that it's an extremely well-crafted film with very good performances and some lovely moments.....but there is absolutely no reason why this female character had to be 20. I suppose we can chalk it up to the fact that Sofia Coppola is young, but we've seen this so many times before.

G: Have we? Really? I defer to your wisdom on this, but it seems to me that we've seen older men having sex with younger women, but not older men NOT having sex with younger women.

J: I don't think it's about the sex. To me, the age differential was a distraction. It's possible that this really is just two lost souls, and maybe I've just seen too many movies where there IS sex, but I don't see why this "deep emotional connection" that some of our compatriots at the Roundtable are crowing about has to be with someone half his age. ;)

G: It touched me, because it was deeper than the scenarios I've seen before. This is no Last Tango in Paris, it's no Lolita, it's not even a Working Girl. It's something different.

J: I guess I don't see the depth. Maybe I'm just a cynic, but it's still four days. There's a limit to how much depth you get to in four days. So I'm trying to sort out my appreciation for the film's artistic merit from my visceral distaste for the storyline.

G: I think it's wise of you to realize that the narrative plays into a storyline that you dislike generally. And although I don't think the wife is played that shrewishly -- she seems genuinely interested in his input on the home renovation, for instance -- I can see that your experiences would put you off the movie.

J: Yeah, but it's made pretty clear that wifey's obsession with the home renovation = shallow; while Charlotte's navel gazing = deep.

G:I'd disagree with you on both counts. I think the home renovation = life, while Charlotte's navel gazing = immature but trying to grow.

J: YOU think....and I would agree. But I don't see that as the way it was presented. What obviously no one thinks about is that she is stuck home with the kids, trying to keep day-to-day life together, while her husband gets to gallivant around all over the world.

G: Ah, now THIS is what you really feel -- wife abandonment. And truthfully, he hasn't 'stuck' her with the kids, as his monologue about them shows. And while Toyko may be glamorous, it's hardly 'gallivanting'.

J: You and I know that....but does the wife? Especially after he glorifies that party to her?

G: I thought he made the party sound pretty weak. And it WAS weak. As to what the wife knows, well, that's another movie. It's a movie you're far more interested in than LOST IN TRANSLATION. I get that. But it IS another movie.

J: The implication, whether intentional or not, is that she is trying to fill up HER empty life on his nickel, and he has to do things he hates to satisfy her.

G: Again, I disagree with your read on the scenario. He wants his wife to be happy. He wants to be happy. But he doesn't know how to achieve either.

J: I don't get so much that he wants the wife to be happy; he just wants her to shut up about the renovations already. ;)

G: Where in the world do you get that? Where does he EVER say one unkind word to the wife? He's sick of his life, yeah, but he's not out bashing his wife into the ground.

J: No, he's not bashing the wife, but believe me, I've been married to the same guy for a long time, and I know that tone of weary resignation when I hear it. It's standard husband stuff when they don't want to make a decision. *grin*

G: And if you're really upset by the 'chickie' (as degrading a term for a woman as I've ever heard you use), why aren't you MORE upset by the lounge singer, who he ends up having an ACTUAL sexual event with?

J: I think you misunderstand....it's not the character's actions that I have a problem with....to quote Jessica Rabbit; he's not bad, he's just drawn that way. It's not that I object to anything the character does; I just question whether this interaction between these two characters is really something so new that we haven't seen before, or if the fact that they don't have sex is what just blows people away because it's different from what usually happens. I'm thinking that perhaps because there's no sex, it feels more "real" as an emotion to people. I guess I see this short-duration relationship as being bittersweet and fleeting and its chasteness doesn't make it any more than that.

Frankly, I found the phone conversations with the wife a lot more meaningful than the gallivanting around with the chickie....it's clear that this is a couple in which BOTH parties are aware that Something Is Wrong, and neither one can articulate it.

G: Absolutely. The phone conversations with his wife were marvelous, because it shows that there's no one to blame. It fights, in fact, the misogynist/ageist read you're placing on the film.

J: I still disagree....I think it's made pretty clear that the wife, being so totally entrenched in home and house and STUFF and the kids can't see the pain HE's in. Even if you want to allow that he's NOT just doing the ad so she has money to spend, that's still pretty clear. Granted, what's going on here is not an "affair" in the conventional sense (though it IS what is called an "emotional affair", which of course is only defined as such by marriage counselors and spouses who have to live through watching the person they live with pine over someone else).

G: For me, it's not so much about his disaffection with his wife, but a general disaffection with his life. What IS he doing here in Tokyo, when he'd rather be doing a play? Clearly his wife didn't want him to be in Tokyo either, and wants him to come home quickly.

J: That's true. But the obsessiveness conveyed in faxing diagrams of perfectly ordinary bookcases and carpet samples draws a very clear connection between her spending habits and his making $2 million doing something he hates. And maybe SHE's just as dissatisfied as he is?

G: I think it's clear that she is.

J: But his dissatisfaction seems to have more meaning and be based on something more REAL. When do we hear about HER longings and HER midlife crisis? Or do only men's midlife crises matter?

G: Oh, that's bullcrap, Cozzi. ;-) This movie is not ABOUT her. It's about HIM. And that's not sexist. I could say the same about Charlotte Gray or The Hours or any Michelle Pfeiffer movie of the last decade: "When do we hear about HIS problems? Why are we always dealing with the WOMAN's midlife crisis? Or do only women matter?"

J: Frankly I'd like to see a movie where we see BOTH CHARACTERS' midlife crises and dissatisfactions about the marriage. Wait a minute. I did. It's called The Secret Lives of Dentists, a movie I love more every minute, now that I think about it. ;)

G:Yeah. It was also called Terms of Endearment. And Ordinary People. And tons of other movies. As for Dentists -- a movie I liked, but didn't love -- if it had one ounce of Sofia Coppola's ability on display, it would have been great. But it feels like it was made by putting the actors through a meat grinder first.

J: That may be true....and as you know, I hated Terms of Endearment perhaps more than any other film in history, so them's fighting words. I think what frustrated me most here, and call me a bitter middle-aged woman if you want (though frankly, I wasn't a dewy young chickie when I WAS a dewy young chickie) was that I had trouble fighting my way past a rather ho-hum midlife crisis to get to what was obviously a well-crafted film.

G: The truth is that there's room to tell stories which do NOT focus on both parts of a relationship, even when that relationship is in decline.

J:Of course, if a WOMAN has a midlife crisis in a movie, (like, oh, say, Diane Lane in Unfaithful), the spouse is a perfectly nice guy who just happens to be a bit dorky, and there are some pretty heavy consequences.

G: I suggest you wait to see the Men-Suck-Raw-Eggs nouveau feminism of Under the Tuscan Sun before you hold up Diane Lane as your ideal. :-)

J: Heh. I don't hold Diane Lane up as my ideal. You seem to think that I liked that movie when I didn't. And of course Adrian Lyne-land has its own rules of Crime and Punishment when it comes to sex -- particularly female sex. And from what I've heard about Tuscan Sun, it's essentially not much different from An Unmarried Woman, another film I loathe to this day. So there. ;)

G: But back to Bill Murray's character: He doesn't like the life he's living, and he meets another kindred soul who's unhappy as well. (Okay, yes, she's young and beautiful, but so what? To me, it's about the need to connect with someone in this awful place.)

J: So other than the vantage point of the screenwriter, is there any reason why this character had to be 20?

G: I'd argue that the important thing is that it be intergenerational...but it could have been an older woman and a younger man, I guess. For the movie to work, the two loners have to be coming from different stages of their lives.

J: I guess I just don't see that. Explain it, because I'm not getting it.

G: This is not a story of two people who are coming from the same place. They are reaching for something new, something they don't know. The Other. She is seeking a more mature life experience; he is trying to feel less tied to a life path. She is looking for order; he is looking for spontaneity. She couldn't find this connection in a man her age, and he couldn't find it in a woman his age. (He tried, with the lounge singer...and it failed miserably.)

J: And this differs from any other male midlife crisis story -- how? (other than the sex...)

G: This is not about objectification, which is your premise. This is about filling a new place in oneself. And if you don't get it, as they used to say, you don't get it. ;-)

J: I don't think most real-life male midlife crises are about objectification either. Midlife is a peculiar time, because there IS an element of "Is this all there's going to be?" The question is whether you can make your peace with "Yes", that maybe "this" isn't so bad. Think about how much MORE interesting this story is if BOTH of these characters are coming from a similar place and part at the end anyway.

G: Yick. Color me uninterested, at least in this scenario. Throw Angela Bassett and Wesley Snipes into it, and you've got the execrableWaiting to Exhale storyline. I've seen two middle-aged people breaking up. Seen it many times. Seen it in real life. Seen it in the movies. Give me something new.

J: J: NOW who's being ageist? ;) But then the "middle-aged man DOESN'T fuck the chickie" angle is what's new? OK, I can buy that. I guess I just don't see the regrets and the longing as being significantly different to deal with whether there was sex or not. It's funny, though....the relationship in Ghost World, though every bit as age-inappropriate, didn't bother me the way this one did. Perhaps because Seymour in Ghost World isn't married, and is clearly emotionally stunted and immature in a way Bill Murray's character isn't.

G: Or perhaps -- perhaps -- because you're not as threatened by Thora Birch's ability to steal the souls of middle-aged men as you are by the far-more-gorgeous, far-more-adult Scarlett Johansson. Just a theory.

J: -- No, because I happen to think that Thora Birch is pretty darn gorgeous. And Scarlett Johansson was just fine in The Man Who Wasn't There, which in some ways depicted a very similar kind of intergenerational, fleeting relationship that serves a purpose in its time. And that's a pretty low blow, my esteemed friend. But you know, a funny thing happens to middle-aged women; and perhaps it's a function of realizing that their capital ain't worth what it used to be -- they start being less dependent on the approval of men for their own self image -- women in the REAL world, that is. Celebrities and actresses, well, that's another story.

G: And the fact that he DOESN'T sleep with her, when he probably had the chance to, was refreshing to me...and argues for a deeper spiritual connection in all relationships.

J: I can go along with that, and if he HAD slept with her, I would have had to tear the screen off the wall with my teeth (as you believed I might do with The Secret Lives of Dentists, but had no desire to). In fact, this connection over jet lag and vague disillusionment didn't bother me that much through MOST of the movie; it seemed perfectly fine -- until of course he spends the night with the aging, blowsy nightclub singer and then she's contrasted with the dewy Ms. Johansson. Then the tone changed and for the rest of the film, it seemed to head down the same old midlife crisis path we've seen a million times before, right up to the young chickie telling him to stay in a place he obviously hates WITH HER, and he actually considers it. It bothers me that this brief connection is being touted by so many other critics as being some sort of "soulmate" relationship; some kind of deep-seated intimacy.

G: I haven't read that, but if someone's saying that I'd agree it's overstating the case. This is just two people, passing in the night, taking some momentary solace from one another in a non-sexual way. More than that is projecting.

J: And as long as they both seemed to recognize that, it was fine. It's at the point where they start believing it is, can be, or SHOULD be more, that they lose me. I think that if I hadn't read so much waxing rhapsodic (I think it might have been Bryant Frazer at the Roundtable, I'm not sure) about this intimate connection between these two characters, it wouldn't have bugged me. Even other female critics have gotten sucked into it....I wonder, though, how many of them are much past 30. Sure it's beautifully handled, and Murray is great in that last scene, but that still doesn't redeem what's happening underneath.

G: That what's you get for reading these other stupid online critics. Haven't you realize that you should only pay attention to me? ;-) Okay, also Ned, Shimes. And...uh...let me think...Well, I am sorry you didn't like it. For me, it's easily top ten of the year material, maybe top five. Coppola's ability with dialogue, camera work, and especially with pacing just blew me away.

J: I would agree with that...but my challenge is to try to separate the artistry of the filmmaking from something that I find so, well, conventional in point of view (middle-aged male) But let me talk for a minute about what I DID like. Of course the use of music. Murray's rendition of the Roxy Music ballad gets all the press, but his version of Elvis Costello's What's So Funny ... blew me away. It's an angry song, but he puts an edge of grief and regret in there that's really amazing. I'd love to hear the whole thing. The juxtaposition of the frenetic aspects of modern Japanese society -- the ridiculous talk show host, the video arcades, the relentless neon, the karaoke and strip clubs -- against the more traditional aspects -- the Buddhist (Shinto?) temple....the traditional wedding....the women arranging flowers. The noise of Tokyo cutting to the quiet of the hotel pool. Coppola's strength is more in creating a mood than in telling a story, and that's fully on display here.

G:Oh, I disagree. I mean, yes, she's good at mood, but her pacing and dialogue are better than any young director working today. This is a director who can DEFINITELY tell a story well.

J: I loved all the performances except Giovanni Ribisi, an actor whose virtues completely escape me. Of course, he doesn't have much to do but be a jerk. Murray is basically an older, sadder version of his Groundhog Day character --

G: You forgot less annoying, said The Guy Who Dislikes Groundhog Day.

J: Ah, and I loved Groundhog Day. I loved the premise, I loved his work in it, but that's another discussion for another day. ;) but I think this and Campbell Scott's performance in Dentists are wonderful examples of saying a lot with very few words. Great work from both of them. I have no beef with Scarlett Johansson, though I don't think she really has a lot to do here; it's really Bill Murray's story. She's kind of a younger Uma Thurman with Lauren Bacall's voice, which makes her seem older than she is. But you know who almost stole the movie for me? Anna Faris as the bimbo. Hilarious. So you see? I didn't hate it. It's the classic dilemma of having to try to appreciate the artistic merits of a film when the story just elicits a visceral negative reaction.

G: Well I still say you're wrong, but at least last time I looked, that's not illegal. But now I really need another cup of coffee. How about you.?

J: I'm utterly exhausted. Give me a double.

-- Jill Cozzi and Gabriel Shanks

Review text copyright © 2003 Jill Cozzi, Gabriel Shanks, and Mixed Reviews. All rights reserved. Reproduction of text in whole or in part in any form or in any medium without express written permission of Mixed Reviews or the author is prohibited.

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