Bob: Can you keep a secret? I'm trying to organize a prison break. I'm looking for, like, an accomplice. We have to first get out of this bar, then this hotel, then the city and then the country. Are you in or are you out?
Charlotte: I'm in. I'll go pack my stuff.
Bob: I hope you've had enough to drink. It's going to take courage.
Bob Harris (Bill Murray) is a fading actor who's in Tokyo to film a few commercials. Charlotte (Scarlett Johansson) is a Yale psychology graduate who has tagged along with her photographer husband. They both live in the same hotel and they are both bored with their lives. And not understanding the native language is one of those common things that brings them together.
Charlotte definitely has a talent for seeing through fake people, and to be more specific, seeing through her husband's fake friends. She is everything you could ask for in a woman, making it difficult to believe she is in her early twenties. The only time she opens up to one of her friends over the phone, she realizes nobody really cares about her troubles or her dull existence. Bob, on the other hand, is sarcastic, grumpy and yet mild-mannered during his interactions with people around him. Both are obviously bored in their respective marriages and they strike a fast friendship as they go along. Probably it's the age difference that makes each of them hesitant to turn it into anything more than a friendship. They discuss everything about life, relationships and aspirations even though both are the quiet-types. Almost like they have known each other for long enough to complete each other's sentences. There's pure magic in their relationship, even though they decide not to be back again in order to treasure those moments.
There's not much happening in the movie and it's exactly that which makes the movie so likable. One could compare this pair to the one in In the Mood for Love or Before Sunset. This is Sofia Coppola's second movie and she has done an absolutely brilliant job. Bill Murray fits the role perfectly (just like the way in Broken Flowers) and Scarlett Johansson is, as usual, lovable.
Rating - 8/10
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