"Lost In Translation", Dir: Sophia Coppola, 2003 and "The Ice Storm", Dir: Ang Lee, 1997

These past few weeks of February 2026 have been a case of catching up with films I've been aware of but have never actually watched for various reasons and one rare visit to an actual cinema to watch Richard Linklater's excellent semi-factual reconstruction of Jean Luc Godard's "A Bout de Souffle"/"Breathless" : "Nouvelle Vague".

Besides the two films reviewed, which straddle the turn of the Millennium, I also watched Wes Anderson's "The Darjeeling Limited", again, a film I knew about but had never watched, not being especially a fan of Anderson's visual and narrative style as it has evolved in his later films - you might assume that it would be a natural choice considering the film's Indian setting and it is mildly amusing and quirky and also coincidentally features an all too brief cameo by Bill Murray besides hinting at early signs of Anderson's signature style.

I watched Sophia Coppola's 2003 "Lost In Translation" first already aware of the plot about Murray's character "Bob Harris", a famous actor, arriving in Tokyo to appear in TV commercials for "Suntory" whiskey much like real-life actors before him when American film stars were much in demand for this type of work in Japan.

A chance encounter with a young American woman "Charlotte" played by Scarlett Johansson who is accompanying her photographer husband (Giovani Ribissi) leads to a friendship of two lost souls in a strange country and the plot turns on the tension that exists between the much older "Harris" and younger "Charlotte", both revealed to be in troubled marriages.

My own fascination with Japan started with a guidebook of Tokyo that my father bought back with him from a business trip and I finally had the opportunity to visit in 1985 and many of the experiences of the characters in the film chimed with mine, and no doubt with the film's director, who had been inspired to write the film based on her own experiences visiting Japan . As a six-foot something I remember similar situations in lifts as depicted in a shot in the film and walking the busy Tokyo streets I exchanged brief eye contact with a tall, young and attractive American or European woman with the looks of a fashion model, as if we were acknowledging how much we must have stood out amongst the Japanese people around us, but unlike the characters in the film it was a fleeting moment and I often imagine how it might have developed. I also vividly remember standing in a crowded Tokyo metro train carriage with a clear view, due to my height, of a "Salaryman" reading one of the many Manga comics featuring very graphic hardcore sex scenes that are available in stacks on train platforms, surrounded by unconcerned housewives and other commuters almost identically to a similar scene in the film featuring Johansson that highlights the peculiarities of Japanese culture. The closest I got to visiting the fleshpots of Tokyo's Roppongi district as seen in the film was being asked by a cab driver if I wanted to see them one very late evening after being turfed out of the cheapest hotel for travellers in the city before I declined and instead asked him to direct me to a suitable alternative hotel. "Lost In Translation" mines a trope in literature and film of the younger woman becoming attracted to an older worldly-wise man and far from being a predator, Murray's "Harris" is upright in the knowledge that he is old enough to be "Charlotte" father and the two characters hold back from crossing the line into physically consummating their attraction, realising instead that they fulfil a mutual emotional need that is lacking in their individual personal lives. That said, viewed now in the context of the Jeffrey Epstein scandal, there are moments in the film that feel awkward, most obviously in a scene where they choose to meet in a naked pole-dancing bar, an awkwardness that is depicted in Murray's measured performance and it is to Sophia Coppola's credit that it never strays further into that awkward territory, instead revealing the hopelessness of their situation as they part as friends by the film's conclusion.

An interesting and not entirely unconnected aside is the episode of the 2015-2021 French hit Netflix series about a Paris actor's agency, "Call My Agent" / "Dix Pour Cent", that guest-starred Sigourney Weaver playing herself and where she has been invited to France to star in a romcom about two older people falling in love. When she discovers that her co-star is a geriatric actor (Bernard Verley) and not the up-and-coming young actor (and sadly, late) Gaspard Ulliel as she was led to believe, she protests and decides to quit, arguing that people, especially women of a certain age, would love to see a film about an older woman falling in love with a much younger man and she succeeds in convincing the agent and film's producer that it is a good idea so clearly it is a trope that need not be burdened by awkwardness unless the older party is a predator or "cougar" intent on exploiting a younger person.

Which brings me neatly to Ang Lee's 1997 film "The Ice Storm" since it also stars Sigourney Weaver as a 1970's "cougar" trapped in a boring marriage and seeking solace in affairs with a neighbour (Kevin Klein) in a close knit and wealthy Connecticut community at the height of the 1970's "wife-swapping" and recreational drug culture.

However the film doesn't centre on Weaver's character though I must say her characterisation is very much at odds with her appearances in other films since she looks stunning as a temptress who chooses her men and discards them with equal ease. The plot revolves around two families, the Hoods and the Carvers, ostensibly best friends in as much as they meet socially, and their offspring, played by Christina Ricci, Tobey MacGuire, Elijah Wood and Adam Hann-Byrd as respectively, the children of the Hoods and the Carvers, socialise and meet at each other's homes in rural Connecticut. The adult Hoods are played by Kevin Klein and Joan Allen and the Carvers by Jamey Sheridan and Sigourney Weaver. It's made clear at the outset that there is disfunction on both sides for both the adults and their children - Klein's "Ben Hood" is conducting a sexual affair with Weaver's "Janey Carver" under his wife's nose and she comes to be aware of it. Christina Ricci's "Wendy Hood" is sexually precocious and flirts with Elijah Wood's "Mikey Carver" while being more interested in seducing his geeky and emotionally damaged younger brother, Adam Hann-Byrd's "Sandy Carver" who takes pleasure in blowing up his "G.I Joe" Dolls and has an unhealthy interest in weapons and hanging. All this goes on while the younger Hood's and Carvers are aware of their parent's marital problems and promiscuity and the only character to emerge with any dignity is Tobey MacGuire's "Paul Hood" who is studying in New York and is consequently removed from any dramas. However, newly independent, he believes himself to be in a burgeoning romance with a fellow student "Libbets Casey" (Katie Holmes) but discovers this is unreciprocated.

Jamey Sheridan's "Jim Carver" is a successful businessman frequently away from his family due to his work and apart from him, we never really discover what Klein's "Ben Hood" does for a living, or indeed any of the other men in the wealthy middle-class community and it is telling that Carver is a frequent topic of conversation and focus of interest when it comes to work as a commentary on the values of upwardly mobile Americans in the 1970's, ie money and sex. Elijah Wood's "Mikey Carver" is clearly intelligent and on his way to being a star student but his attraction to Ricci's "Wendy" is a distraction and ultimately he is the centre of a tragedy that befalls both families following a wife-swapping party and the ice-storm of the title.

Ang Lee's direction navigates some tricky and potentially problematic areas in terms of depicting the younger cast and their awkward sexual awakenings and it's possible that Ricci's role overshadowed her later career to some extent since despite being 17 at the time, she appears much younger, and this applies to all the younger cast members. I can think of only one film I watched recently, Louis Malle's "Murmer of The Heart" that covers similar territory so candidly and with humour, and Lee handles these scenes with aplomb and maturity so they never come across as gratuitous though I can imagine that it must have been difficult for the younger cast members to enact specific scenes. The film's Taiwanese director Ang Lee came to the attention of Hollywood thanks to several films that created waves at Cannes, such as "Eat Drink Man Woman", before his adaptation of "Sense and Sensibility" proved that his oeuvre needn't have been confined to Asian genre cinema and consequently he is one of very few Asian directors who have successfully transitioned to making films in Hollywood on Western themes and the complex plot of "The Ice Storm" succeeds due to his steady hand supported by solid performances from both the adult and younger cast members.

"The Ice Storm" was released in 1997, the year my father passed away, which may explain why I never watched it before, but then my interest in cinema at the time tended to be in science fiction and fantasy and I recall a screening of Paul Verhoeven's "Starship Troopers" where I had to leave the theatre due to the graphic on-screen violence since it all felt too close to events in my life at the time - unfortunately the only other film running at the same multiplex was one of the "Alien" sequels, "Alien: Resurrection", which of course also starred Sigourney Weaver.

"Lost In Translation", Dir: Sophia Coppola, 2003 "The Ice Storm", Dir: Ang Lee, 1997

Ravi Swami, 21/02/26