A Commoner's Complaint

IT IS AS IF the media elite is daring moviegoers to
dislike Sofia Coppola and the Best Picture-nominated
film she wrote and directed, "Lost in Translation."
Teasing a feature article in which directors of last year's
Oscar-likely movies talk with each other,
Newsweek--the coolest of the weeklies--had a picture
of the young Coppola on its table of contents. The
caption read: "Sofia Coppola talks with her peers."

Her "peers" would be, oh, young, inexperienced
directors like Clint Eastwood and Peter Jackson.

The New York Times Magazine gave the movie
extensive, lavish play before "Lost in Translation" had
even been seen anywhere outside of the rarified world
of film festivals, treating Coppola as a generational
north star along the lines of an Allen Ginsberg. Such
attention would be impossible to get if you weren't from
a famous clan (hilariously, the Times Magazine article
quoted Zoe Cassavetes on the merits of Sofia
Coppola; they probably fact-checked her comments
with one of the Scorsese children). It's more than
enough to make any good anti-royalist sneer.

And yet I like the Oscar-nominated movie, a lot you
might say, but with the following caveats. It wasn't the
best movie I saw last year; furthermore, it wasn't even
the best small, independent movie I saw last year.
(That honor belongs to the truly spectacular feat of
acting and directing, "Raising Victor Vargas.") Also, on
its cloudwalk toward a magical soul-meeting, the movie
steadies itself by the handrails of a Salingeresque
condescension and a handful of cliches that do not
speak well of the director's otherwise light touch.

For those who haven't yet seen the movie, "Lost in
Translation" is the brief, nonconjugal love story of two
bruised American souls, played by Scarlett Johansson
and Bill Murray, who find each other in the midst of the
bewildering visuals and mores of Tokyo. Most of the
action takes place in a huge hotel where the two are
staying, or rather stuck, until they can finally escape and
possibly return home to the shortcomings of their
respective lives.

THE ANTI-COPPOLA CASE is easy to sum up.
Sympathy for the main character Charlotte is
established by showing how her sensitive nature and
intelligent mind makes her a little too good for her
husband's work as a celebrity photographer. She's also
too good for the people her husband has to mingle
with, fakers like a Hollywood actress who's in Japan to
promote her latest action flick. The movie and its
uncharitable humor is instructive of the contempt one
feels for fellow Americans who make asses of
themselves abroad. Yet this is not solid ground: Many
of the failings the movie criticizes are also its heroine's
failings.

The stupid American actress is overheard
yammering on about how she's, like, so into
Bhuddism and, you know, reincarnation. Yet a phoney
sacred air fills the screen as Charlotte embarks on her
own moments of spiritual tourism. Not that there isn't a
difference between the shallowness of the dumb
American tourist and the unavoidable shallowness of
the intelligent, respectful American who knows she's
only looking on. But the latter doesn't truly describe
Charlotte. She is prone to Zooey-Glass-like fits of
spiritual trembling without anything so redeeming as
Zooey's simultaneous self-contempt. Props like the
American actress, her husband's work, a lounge
singer's bad taste, though entertaining in themselves
as objects of derision, also bring attention to
Charlotte's own lack of, well, depth and fine taste.

And the authenticity supplied by the movie's
cherished pair of lover/non-lovers is not all its cracked
up to be. In a late-night bull session, soulmate Bill
Murray says the day a parent's first child is born is the
most terrifying of his life because everything changes. A
patent cliche, although his soulmate Scarlett
Johansson comments that no one ever tells you that.
(Speaking as a new parent, I can tell you that this is
actually what everyone tells you.)

Interestingly, most of the problems are in the
movie's script, while the movie itself is about a human
space beyond words where a communion of souls can
be achieved, even with strangers (or perhaps only with
strangers, because they are not party to one's usual
rut). And here the movie is genuinely special. Indeed,
the text of this movie is so-so; its subtext, on the other
hand, is one of a kind.