MURRAY TRUMPS PENN

I liked Sofia Coppola’s LOST IN TRANSLATION almost as much as I hated Clint Eastwood’s MYSTIC RIVER. Let’s just spite industry anti-comedian prejudice and nominate Bill Murray for the Oscar, shall we? His caustic restraint is far more compelling than Sean Penn’s grandiose suffering. Credulity shouldn’t be a crowbar issue, but it has to count for something. I have two boys under 6, and I don’t know how the novel might convince me otherwise, but there’s no way I’m persuaded that a kid under 10 could FAKE muteness, never mind the shaky “accidental” motive. What would the moral of this flick be? Don’t get into a stranger’s car when you’re a kid or you might get molested and then, much later in life, killed by your best friend when he mistakenly blames you for killing his 19-year-daughter? Reminds me of the moral to AMERICAN BEAUTY, another “prestige” title that blew chunks: don’t buy pot from your neighbor’s kid, or you might get killed when the homophobic dad mistakes you for a gay pedophile.


LOST IN TRANSLATION is like BEFORE SUNRISE set in Japan, with the May-September romance all beneath the surface, something so rare in movies these days it’s almost unrecognizable. When Murray’s character says “It gets more complicated after you have kids,” lying on the bed with the babe, it has weight far beyond its immediate context. And the next line cinches it: “But your kids turn out to be the most delightful people you’ll ever meet.” And not in spite but because of all this understated heat, Scarlett Johansson becomes a STAR before the credits roll. (PS: Richard Linklater is in post-production on the sequel to BEFORE SUNRISE, the same two characters/actors nine years on.)