Somewhere - Verloren in Hollywood

...makes "Somewhere" an utterly forgettable, self-indulgent (in the worst sense of the term) waste of celluloid. I gotta say, first of all, I have immense respect and admiration for Sofia Coppola. The girl who showed the world she couldn't act in "The Godfather III" had a decade to find herself and prove everybody she was a sensitive, talented writer-director with 1999's "The Virgin Suicides". "Lost In Translation" (2003), which gave her the Oscar for best original screenplay (and a nomination for best director - the third female and first American woman to ever be nominated in that category), is my #3 favourite film of all time. I can watch it over and over and every frame of it can make me appreciate the beauty of life, film, human connections, and music, more. Sounds corny, doesn't it? Well, but it's true.

Sofia's follow-up to LiT, 2006's ostracized "Marie Antoinette", was, yes, sort of shallow, but I have to admit that eye candy and great music alone make it a delicious piece of cake for me. The same can't be said about her latest, "Somewhere", which won the Golden Lion for Best Film at Venice 2010 (a blasphemy, specially considering titles like "Black Swan" and "Balada Triste" were in competition). It follows a bored, kind of good-looking, shallow and womanizing movie star, Johnny Marco (Stephen Dorff) who (surprise) goes through an emotional transformation after spending some time with his 11 year-old daughter (product of a failed marriage), Cleo (Elle Fanning, a more natural actress than her older sister Dakota). We already knew that Sofia is fascinated by the ennui of the rich; but what made Bob Harris and Charlotte such wonderful characters in "Lost In Translation" was their humanity (and the chemistry between their fine performers, Bill Murray and Scarlett Johansson). Johnny Marco is not 1/5 as interesting as those two. Not every main character needs to be likable for a film to work for me, at all - I love character studies, no matter how conflicted ("The Piano Teacher") or pleasant ("Happy-Go-Lucky") the protagonist might be.

However, Marco is not someone interesting enough to spend 97 minutes with, and although Cleo seems to be a nice enough girl, she can't carry a whole film on her shoulders. They don't even share the historical curiosity of a figure like Marie Antoinette and her colorful ways. Marco is just shallow. Filthy rich. Bored. And boring. It's hard to feel bad for him, or even compelled to follow what he might become (the open ending, in that sense, is not a quality, since the movie ends when it could possibly become somewhat interesting). The soundtrack was nice enough (not memorable like those of her previous work), the cinematography is pretty enough (by Harris Savides, and not Lance Acord, this time around), but this is no 'Lost in Translation Redux', or even a film I would want to see again. It's a shame, but I am still curious to see what you do next, Sofia. I know you have it in you to amaze us! Verdict: 3/10.

P.S.: Quentin Tarantino, Sofia's ex-boyfriend who awarded "Somewhere" the Golden Lion as president of the jury at Venice last September, later wouldn't even name it one of his top 20 movies of the year (yet, he lists abominations such as "Jackass 3D", "Knight and Day"...). That can prove one of two things: 2010 was a less than great year for movies, or he finally realized the mistake he made. Well, perhaps both?

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.

"Somewhere" is a polarizing film, which makes it all the stranger that I find myself precisely in the middle of debate. Some hail it as a minimalistic masterwork, while others leave the theater rubbing sleep from their eyes. The latest film by Sofia Coppola isn't for everyone, and stands so structureless that it threatens to liquefy at any moment. With few cuts and most scenes playing out in even fewer angles, it's easy to grow impatient or frustrated with the director. What I admire about her film however is its commitment to capturing complete moments even at the expense of the audience.

"Lost in Translation" this isn't. "Somewhere" isn't anchored by as charismatic or immediately recognizable an on screen pair as Bill Murray and Scarlett Johansson. The world of the former film is also more vibrant and alive than the Hollywood Coppola depicts. She dials back everything until "Somewhere" is essentially an exercise in simplicity. Many have found that quality refreshing, but I was left somewhat cold by the purely surface-level examination of the tedium of stardom.

I absolutely admire Coppola's intentions. Probably my biggest gripe with "Somewhere" is that it employs plot-bombs out of necessity. After 45 minutes of casual observation of our protagonist, burnt-out actor Johnny Marco (Stephen Dorff), Coppola inelegantly drops 30 seconds of expository dialogue into a phone call that sets up the rest of movie. It rings immediately false and seems out of place in an otherwise drifting film.

And there are some beautiful sights along the way. Coppola manages to transcend her sedentary camera-work with occasionally brilliant choreography. A pair of pole dancers performing a hokey routine springs to mind, as does a gracefully executed figure skating sequence. The director has a knack for using characters rather than set-ups to color our experience, but my problem with "Somewhere" is that not every scene is equally fascinating. Some merely communicate an idea and a feeling, but drag on for far too long. Admittedly, to truncate her moments would be to rob them of their intended impact, but as a moviegoer it's hardly thrilling to watch characters lounge poolside for the better part of a minute.

Coppola is at her most successful when she's able to wring the irony out of a scenario. When Johnny arrives in Italy to accept an award, we get a clear sense of the dichotomy between the hoopla of the entertainment industry and a jaded entertainer. That everyone around him is speaking in a foreign language completes the metaphor and makes for one of film's best sequences. Watching the character play "Guitar Hero" is comparably flat. That scene serves only one purpose: to demystify celebrity. While I wouldn't go so far as to call it boring, it doesn't offer any additional insight into the character.

But then "Somewhere" isn't just a portrait of a movie star but a portrait of a father, and Dorff and Elle Fanning deserve recognition for the flawlessly naturalistic relationship their characters share. Considered opposite her countless melodramatic peers, Coppola is in a league of her own. The people who populate her films never fail to impress with their nuance, but in this case I'm not convinced the filmmaking does them justice.

"Somewhere" is a film I find equally hard to love or hate, though I sympathize better with its detractors. Nevertheless, it posits compelling characters, great performances, and enough smart and amusing scenes to make worth recommending. Whether you leave the theater rubbing sleep from your eyes or having witnessed a minimalistic masterpiece, you have my blessing. Much like Marco himself, I'm neither here nor there.

'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.

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