Lost in Translation

because we kept mentioning going to Japan, someone lent us ‘Lost in Translation’.
To be honest, it wasn’t very impressive. It could have been set anywhere, and been just as bizarre. Plus all that ‘l’ and ‘r’ reversed stuff was painfully forced, when the Japanese version doesn’t sound that much like either. All that is just minor quibbling, though. Japan wasn’t made to look particularly good or particularly bad, which is how it should be. But the story was just so tired and unimaginative.

A bored middle-aged man and a bored young woman, both married, end up isolated together in a place where they don’t speak the language and don’t know the culture. They end up wrapped up in each other, ignoring everything around them and focussing on themselves. The Lonely Planet guide says that you won’t learn anything about Tokyo from it, and that’s about right.

That would be fine if the characters were likeable. But we have a weak, tiresome and uppity middle-aged man who can’t resist having sex with some random woman when he’s frustrated, and just puts his wife and children out of mind, and a girl who we’re supposed to think is justified in cheating on her husband because he’s got an airheaded friend. Well, rather her than the main girl, a stroppy, jealous, self-centred and arrogant cheater. If we were led to dislike this contemptible duo, fine. But trying to give us an uplifting ending by finally having them kiss left me feeling very self-righteous. Which is quite fun, admittedly, but the entertainment content of the film was…sorely lacking.