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Sofia Coppola's comic melodrama is a paean to dislocated people discovering how alive they are when they can barely keep their eyes open. The sexiness comes from the busy, desperate need-to-impress heat of a flirtation, an unrequited love communicated through a filter of sleep deprivation. And never has a director found a figure more deserving of her admiration than Bill Murray.

He plays a vodka-and-bitters version of himself, and the persona that made him famous. His character, Bob, is an American movie star who's in Tokyo to participate in the celebrity not-so-secret shame: picking up a boatload of dough to appear in commercials for Suntory whiskey.

While blinking sleeplessly around the hotel lobby he meets Charlotte (Scarlett Johansson), who has been abandoned by her husband, an ambitious photographer; he's off shooting a band.

The movie follows the twists and connections in Bob and Charlotte’s relationship; like some trans-Atlantic phone calls, their feelings reach each other on a five-second delay. The lag time only adds to the comedy, and heartbreak.