Lost in Translation

Ummmm… what was that ending. I was honestly waiting to see a beautiful ending and some extraordinary relationship between Charlotte and Bob, but of course it couldn’t be a movie with a happy ending. I really like Charlotte. I relate to her a lot, especially to the fact that she doesn’t know what she wants to be, and that phone call at the beginning felt so realistic — how she tries to talk about her problems and no one listens to her. And then how she walks around Tokyo and simply looks around and admires everything she sees. It’s so beautiful and relaxing to just walk and look around, especially to observe people. I also really like Bob. I think his interactions with people in Tokyo who don’t understand English are so accurate, and I love that. He’s just so likeable and sweet, I adore him. About their relationship, all I can say is that I think it’s one of the healthiest relationships I’ve ever seen. I love their connection, how they’re shy but at the same time make these cheesy little jokes and are simply themselves. When there’s that scene where they watch a movie together (La Dolce Vita, by the way — I love that it’s mentioned) and they just talk and sit together, the way she asks him questions without filtering them, and how they’re kind of in a bubble, I find their relationship absolutely extraordinary. And omg, I have to mention the elevator scene when they say goodnight; it’s so cute and so real. What I didn’t like was the fact that he slept with the singer. I don’t really know how to see their relationship. I mean, I can see it as a relationship-relationship, but at the same time I can also see it as something like a friendship, yet I don’t think it’s exactly either of those. I think they were simply some kind of “help” for each other, because they understood each other, they matched, and that was it. I’ll give an example, even though I don’t know how accurate it is, but I’ll go with it. Let’s say that each of them was the color white before they met, and after they met they became grey. At the beginning, Charlotte was white, and after meeting Bob, who was black, she became grey. I think a better example would be that Charlotte is like a glass of water and Bob is, let’s say… salt. Once you put salt in water, the taste changes — it becomes different. And I think that’s exactly what their relationship was. They changed and helped each other. They felt good, understood, compatible. I don’t really know how their relationship should be taken. I don’t think the kiss was necessarily something romantic; I think it was a very strange way of showing love, but I’m not sure. I think this will remain a dilemma for me. For me, the ending is fake, because I refuse to believe that they finally found each other just for him to leave and that’s it. Nothing after that. I was waiting, believing and hoping for something like “five years later” or something like that, but instead there was nothing. And I interpret that as… what? That they simply found each other. I think the red string theory or the soulmate theory applies perfectly to them, honestly both, and now it’s over. It makes me so sad that they ended the movie like that. I try to understand why, but I really can’t. Just to leave such an empty ending and let you interpret it? I think it’s very stupid, but it’s okay because I believe they found each other again and lived happily ever after. I think this has officially become my favorite romance movie, but we shouldn’t forget that Pride and Prejudice also exists, which I really loved. Throughout the movie I felt a kind of nostalgia related to it, but I don’t know why. There’s just something very similar between them, but I can’t quite explain what it is.