Lost in Translation (Reprise)

  It could be a touching tale, but soon into Reprise, the faux nave voiceover narration begins, enclosing every word and gesture with cute little quotation marks. The characters actually wiggle their fingers once in a while to signify postmodern irony—a gesture that even Hollywood movies began poking fun at by the end of the last decade.

  Phillip and Erik, despite their laudable ambitions of writing the great Norwegian novel, just aren’t terribly interesting characters. Other than youthful infatuation for a reclusive ’60s-era Norwegian author (a Nordic J.D. Salinger?), there is little explanation for why they are pursuing the life of literature. Both would look more comfortable ensconced in gray, Dilbert office cubicles than holding forth with Gore Vidal, Philip Roth or even Jonathan Franzen.