Somewhere

Sofia Coppola has made movies based on personal experiences. Lost In Translation detailed on her relationship with then-husband, Spike Jonze. Marie Antoinette explained her stature as the daughter of a well-known figure who faces a new world full of strangers. Somewhere briefs us on how she felt when her father, Francis Ford Coppola was around.

But, that isn't what Somewhere is all about. Somewhere becomes the memories of the father, played by Stephen Dorff rather than the daughter, played by Elle Fanning. After I watched L.I.T, I thought Coppola has made an avant garde classic. After Marie Antoinette, I felt she could make an art film and could resemble a Kubrick heiress. But, Somewhere takes her nowhere. And, a GOLDEN "FREAKING" LION award?? You gotta be kidding me! The film excluding those long shots would be less than 60 minutes. How big was her screenplay? 55 pages? But, every filmmaker makes a bad film. Hell, Daddy Coppola made Jack!

A successful actor in his 40's leads an estranged life from his daughter. He boozes his way through the various engagements his contract with the film company requires him to attend. At some point his 11 year daughter played by Dakota Fanning's younger sibling unexpectedly turns up at his hotel. And a sign that reads: "Let the bonding begin".

Cappola revisits with this movie her own legacy by making a Lost in Translation II, albeit with significantly less oomph than the successful predecessor starring Bill Murray and Scarlett Johansson. 'Somewhere' does inspire to the same level of narrative flow (or intentional lack thereof) and it does kind of grow on you as the film progresses. But it never makes the same impact.

This is however still a watchable film in between the lingering shots that is, with some convincing acting by both Fanning and Stephen Dorff who is casted perfectly for the role.

65/100

'Somewhere' anatomizes the mindset of a man who has everything - except purpose. Johnny Marco is a thriving Hollywood actor but his soul is adrift on the sea of ennui which afflicts those to whom life denies nothing – he lacks meaningful relationships and doesn't know what to do with himself between projects.

In classic European art-house style Coppola evokes Marco's inner desolation through the extensive use of eccentrically framed, lingering, static, wide shots in which the focus of attention listlessly enters and leaves frame. And she does this relentlessly throughout the movie to the point that, like Marco, you just want to give up. Yes the guy is a bit defocused, a bit haunted and generally of a bit of a mid life plateau and yes these attributes are successfully evoked by the directorial style, but the result is so anodyne that you just want to watch a film about a guy with some real reasons to be miserable.

Naturally you're hoping he'll rediscover his mojo through his relationship with his daughter and work out what to do with his life but given the film's obvious anti-Hollywood credentials, you feel your optimism for any kind of resolution seeping away just like Johnny Marco's.

I imagine that if you are the daughter of a like-able, pampered but lost Marco figure, drowning in existential anxiety, then this character study is pretty poignant but it's really no more than a letter from Coppola to her father – and, of course, a gift to the type of film-goer for whom every aspect of the human condition, including boredom - is interesting.

Sometimes less is more; sometimes it's just less.

In a nearby safari park the wardens have taken steps to alleviate depression amongst the gorillas, they hide their food from them or leave it in hard to get places; this saves the gorillas having to sit around, eat, copulate and vegetate. Hollywood A-lister Johnny has this gorilla depression, everything he could possibly want comes at the end of a telephone call. Even the most difficult banana of all, sex, is available by scratching the back of his neck and signalling his assent, or at the end of another phone call if he's feeling especially lazy (which is often).

I once heard it said that rich people live years in the span of a single day, and Johnny certainly does have that flow of experiences coming at him, but the problem for him is that there's no feeling (let's all take a moment to have a boohoo for Johnny). He can barely stifle yawns when his eleven-year-old daughter Cleo, on a custody visit, shows him how she has become a brilliant ice skater and cooks him perfect eggs Benedict for breakfast. Life's too easy and it's suffocating him. There is a suspicion that he's a fluke, that his surfer-boy looks and beatific smile have carried him to the top, but I think there must have been some drive once, as evidenced by a faltering but very pretty rendition of Bach's Goldberg Variation #1.

Ultimately, Johnny Marco has the kind of problems that everyone else wants, and so it's very difficult to feel for him. The movie doesn't have any contrast either, none of the harsh realities of normal Californian workaday lives makes it to the screen. After the decadence of Marie Antoinette I kind of wondered whether Sofia was aware of normality, or whether she just grew up in Arcadia with the other film kids who turn up in the special thanks section at the end of the credits. Johnny Marco is probably the most complacent human alive, but the film doesn't exactly scream that, perhaps because Sofia Coppola doesn't know it. Another flaw is that Coppola's alter-ego Cleo has a decidedly airbrushed personality.

The detail was a big highlight of this film, time seems to have been spent getting the authenticity of the trappings of wealth. Johnny has a bottle of Château Pétrus on the bedside table (retails from $1,000 to $30,000 depending on vintage), chambréed to vinegar, and propped up on a wall is a lithograph by that master of Californian alienation, Ed Ruscha ("Cold beer, beautiful women", $10,000 to a cool million depending on whether it's a limited edition lithograph or the original painting). Other nice details give you insight into character, including a pill bottle of Propecia in his bathroom (prevents male pattern balding), which says he's worried about the onset of middle age, and the player name he has on his games console, 20thCenturyBoy, a sign that he's become his persona.

The cinematography is the second plus, though it's not exactly adventurous the filmmakers were prepared to let the action drift out of shot when they felt like it.

I think Somewhere is a difficult film to watch twice because there's very little connection for a non-wealthy person, the film's torpor has a complacent lull to it which is a little hard to bear. Thematically, I'm not convinced that I've seen mature filmmaking from Sofia Coppola yet.

A 30something year old actor spends his days (and nights) driving his Ferrari as fast as it can go, getting private shows from women,getting massages and participating in events which are part of his career. When at a press conference a journalist asks him "Who's Johnny Marko" he is unable to respond. Johnny is someone (or is he?) but he doesn't really know who. The relationships he has with people are far from personal.

From what we see at the beginning of the movie we would probably think Johnny is the usual single good looking but empty inside actor and that he pretty much has been all his life. But when his daughter shows up the picture is different: a failed marriage behind him... could this have made him what he is? maybe. As he welcomes Cleo back in his life she somehow seems to fill the emptiness of the environment around him. Nothing particularly overwhelming, just the little things that make the difference.

Does this movie display emotion in an explicit and clearly visible way? No. The dialog between characters is not what makes the difference. It's the feelings that make us think we're going somewhere or instead that we are so disconnected we can't care less where we are going. The feelings you can't really put into words (as properly emphasized in "Lost in Translation").

Just like the latter, "Somewhere" shows life as it is, no astonishing happenings, not many life changing experiences and maybe this is what will make a lot of people walk out of the theater unsatisfied or bored. We usually go to the cinema to evade from reality, see relationships develop clearly as they drastically change the lives of those involved in them. But this is not the case: just like in our lives things slowly develop and maybe over time change the way we see the world or feel the world. Maybe as the film suggests at one point, we need to slow down and take a look at where we are going instead of just passing through.

"Somewhere" is a particular movie from a particular director/writer. I can't go ahead and say watch this movie, you will love it, because it isn't for everyone but this is not a good enough reason to not give it a try altogether.