The fact that I have taken this long to put a review of Hanna into the Film Nook is a true "shame on me." An immediate run to the phonebooth and tell the boys back in the copy room which story to run with would have been the far better approach. However, this little blog of mine -- much as I like to let it shine -- is a tiny little subdeal that is more or less still a hobby. Life gets in the way and you end up doing unspeakable things like ... oh, I don't know... reviewing Insidious and The Lincoln Lawyer first.
So let's get to Hanna.
Joe Wright came into the film world as the capable director of Pride and Prejudice. And the way he made the splash with his period piece was not as others have -- quickly redoing a well known text and then fading through the arthouse scene -- particularly those venues that favor assisted listening devices and patrons who travel with ample amounts of crinkly plastic bags. No, Joe Wright's Pride was a thing of beauty with an exceptional cast and an Oscar nominated performance from the good Ms. Knightley.
The follow-up was the adaptation of Atonement a film whose middling success is something that still baffles me. Everything I thought Mr. Wright had correct was somehow problematic to many audience members -- despite its multiple Oscar nominations, including one for best picture. For those of use who were enthralled with Ian McEwan's novel, there could not have been a better adaptation. Christopher Hampton's script reminded the world what a master of adaptation he truly is -- summoning up writing on the level of his Dangerous Liaisons and Carrington screenplays. The photography was near flawless, the performances heartbreaking, the passion lush, the betrayal heart-wrenching, and the pacing just as I'd imagined. That movie was that book and that book was wonderful. What did people want? Furthermore, it behooves me to emphasize my extreme love for Mr. Wright's extended take during the beach battle scene. The choreography of that shot was no minor undertaking and was the perfect time to let the camera roll and roll. Lord knows I love it when a real director knows how to let the camera roll.
And then it seemed there was a crisis of some kind that Joe Wright was going to become Mr. Period Piece -- as if that is the worst thing in the world and should be avoided at all costs. The two he made -- which took place in different centuries -- were excellent pieces of work. Why, one wonders, did he make The Soloist his next project. I love Robert Downey, Jr. more than most people on the planet do. I have seen them all folks. I've seen Fur. Two Girls and a Guy? Oh, I've seen it. The man's divine. But this Soloist ... this was a down home doozie.
Which brings us -- at long last -- to Hanna.
Joe Wright could have done anything as a follow up to The Soloist. One might have thought that he would have turned around and gone running headlong into the arms of successful literature and taken on something that at least required hiking one's skirts when heading through the long grass (that covers a lot of previous centuries). But he didn't. This director proved his salt by taking on the remarkably original Hanna.
The photography makes one wonder if it was adapted from a graphic novel -- it's not. This yarn is the work of screenwriters who created a remarkable young female protagonist thrown into excellently original circumstances: Your father (Eric Bana -- like that isn't reason enough to run to the box office) saved you, took you out into the wild and trained you to be a killer. And yet, there's no denying that you're a blossoming teenage girl and after a while, one has to assume yak meat and endless martial art and combat training gets a little tiresome. Young Hanna (Saoirse Ronan) longs to see the world.
Her heart has the same desires as Ariel, Belle, even Rapunzel -- of course, none of these folks is capable of taking out a group of CIA operatives and vanishing into the folds of a ridiculously (and I do mean ridiculously) intricate ventilation system. You pair all that up with a psychotic Cate Blanchett -- over the top Zak Snyder like framing and a score from the Chemical Brothers -- and you know what you've got on your hands? A damn fine movie.
What I found to be most interesting -- besides, of course, the badass kills, Cate Blanchett once again giving yet another amazing performance as a completely different individual, and Eric Bana hauling hs rugged self out of the water -- were the small heart to heart moments Hanna has with her new found teenage friend. In this age of The Hunger Games where the idea of a female vigilante is not exactly news to the youth world -- what made it novel in this picture was that it seemingly took place in some off beat time period that may as well be now. Hanna's run-ins with regular everyday folk like Olivia Williams -- looking oddly reminiscent of Greta Scacchi back in her Player days -- raise excellent questions about what this little girl from the combative bubble makes of our world. This isn't some brand new place where particular rules have been put in place that force a situation that could only take place in the future. This is more of an Alex Garland/Danny Boyle "may very well be happening, particularly in the middle of Europe and with people who drive cars like that" kind of scenario. It's Firestarter without the flames. But why not trade a tearful Drew Barrymore, a scared-of-the-dark George C. Scott, and a nosebleeding Dad -- for a cold blooded killer, wrapped in wolf pelts, waiting for her first kiss?
The ending could have been more powerful. I will not argue that point. It was a situation where the absolute solution to the mystery was a let down -- no questions asked. But the way the plot played itself out worked perfectly. The actions could not have taken another course -- only their ultimate motivation. Frankly, this is nothing to hold against a film that delivers -- with a wallop -- 95% of the time.
Definitely give it a view.
- Matthew J. McCue
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