There are several scenes in Lost in Translation, Sofia Coppola’s brilliant follow-up to The Virgin Suicides, that were blindingly hysterical on the big screen. But somehow, as I sit down to write this review, they just don’t seem as funny on my little screen. I know what I saw, though, and that only serves as more of a testament to the work done by Coppola and her two acting leads. If they could take these scenes, which almost sound trite and predictable, and make them into mini-masterpieces, you know you’ve got something truly special.

Translation is set entirely in Tokyo, mostly within the confines of a hotel that serves as the temporary home to two displaced Americans. One is a has-been, middle-aged movie star named Bob Harris (Bill Murray, The Royal Tenenbaums) who is in town to shoot a lucrative commercial for a Japanese whiskey. The other is Charlotte (Scarlett Johansson, Eight Legged Freaks), a recent Yale graduate who has accompanied her photographer husband John (Giovanni Ribisi, Basic) as he shoots pictures of a rock band.

Thanks to insomnia and bad Japanese television, Bob and Charlotte have a couple of casual meetings at the hotel’s bar and swimming pool. They strike up a friendship, eventually revealing more to each other than they have to their respective spouses. Bob, who has been married for 25 years to a woman who is now more interested in kids and interior design than him, is embarrassed he’s selling out when he could be performing somewhere on stage. Charlotte is just as lost, extremely unsure what she wants to do with her life or her brand-new philosophy degree.

The two pair up to paint the town red, in different ways than most Western travelers would (the point is driven home by John’s friend, a vapid movie star played by Scary Movie’s Anna Faris, who just does the regular sleazy tourist stuff). As they grow closer and closer, it becomes difficult to tell whether their relationship is more of a father-daughter thing or if there’s something else going on. We don’t know as we’re watching, and they sure don’t seem to know themselves.

While Bob and Charlotte’s scenes together are extremely gratifying, you’ll likely be left with recurring memories of Murray’s solo comedic vignettes, which hilariously illustrate the cultural differences between the US and Japan (without making fun of the Japanese…usually). Like Jack Black’s frenzied performance in…well, anything (but specifically The School of Rock), it’s hard to imagine all of Murray’s gut-busting comebacks and physical comedy were completely scripted. This is the turn that will earn him his first Oscar nomination – his tragic face is perfect for this role. Johansson is just as impressive, but her performance is much more subtle and nuanced.

Coppola shows her thoughtful work in Suicides was no fluke. She cooked up Translation’s extremely original screenplay on her own, while providing a similar dream-life feel to the film. Behind the scenes, Coppola has enlisted the services of cinematographer Lance Acord (he shot both of husband Spike Jonze’s flicks – Being John Malkovich and Adaptation), editor Sarah Flack (she worked with Steven Soderbergh four times) and My Bloody Valentine’s Kevin Shields, who furnishes blistering new music here after a 12-year absence. It’s the same kind of ethereal score Air contributed to Suicides, but also adding a sonically dense feel to the very noisy city.

1:45 –

for some sexual content