Can you keep a secret? I’m trying to organize a prison break. We have to first get out of this bar, then the hotel, then the city, and then the country. Are you in or you out?

Sophia Coppola’s Lost in Translation has been a frustrating little movie for those of us who have championed it. I saw this movie in the theater when it first came out and loved it. I recommended it to friends and family members, most of whom saw it on video. Their response was almost unanimous: it sucked, nothing happened, the two main characters were a couple of passive lumps who never did anything. First I checked the obvious alternatives. Either my friends and family had all seen the wrong movie or they had been replaced by alien pod people. How could such intelligent, rational people take such a passionate dislike to this little gem of a movie.

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