Conceptually, Lost in Translation is a brilliant movie. Capitalizing on alienated people looking for romance by placing them in a culture they can’t connect to as another country, and the cinematography further empathizing crowdedness and the disorienting size of the world around them. Technically expressive, but the dialogue, including most of the leads’ interactions consists of too much sarcasm and repetitive “fish out of water” Asian jokes—and viewing their relationship as a friendship ignores extremely blunt subtext.