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!

Sofia Coppola's personal cinema, in addition to being valuable and admirable, is also fascinating and endearing. I like his viewpoint on cinema. She is the daughter of the godfather of world cinema, Francis Ford Coppola, but she has not been under her father's shadow and stands in an area of cinema that her father was not in. Sofia's minimalist and personal cinema with its themes, concerns and worldview has made for her a special style in her films. The "somewhere", she made in 2010 has a specific form in structure and content. Relatively lengthful shots, fixed camera where the subject is moving in the frame and little dialogue are some of my favorite cinematographic features, which can be seen in abundance in Sofia Coppola's works. The beginning of the film in a fixed frame, where a black Ferrari car is constantly going back and forth, promises a different, fascinating and deep film, and in the final shot, which reminds me of a scene from my own short film (Saz and Khurshid). Johnny, played by Stephen Dorff, leaves the Ferrari on the side of the road and goes alone on the horizon. This is an amazing ending. The film only moves the camera when it is necessary and in line with the structure and content of the film, and this shows the awareness of the director. The film presents a paradox in the world of cinema. Johnny is a depressed, aimless, unmotivated and failed person from the inside and the reality of his life, while he is a prominent actor in the world of cinema and is glamorous.

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

If you have seen Sofia Coppola's previous trilogy and loved it, it would be dishonest to say that "Somewhere" brings about that same emotional involvement: frankly speaking, me and everyone in the theater (few people, indeed, considering it had shortly been awarded with Leone d'oro in Venice) showed perplexed faces and some kind of disappointment. Given as a premise that we, as viewers, are no longer used to slowness, silence, and pauses, it is incontrovertible that even the most patient and quiet spectator would get a little annoyed and bored by long, extremely quiet scenes, where nothing happens, nothing is said, and life simply succumb to the wearing-out power of wasted, useless, unproductive time. Jonnie Marco is hard-living world-famous actor wasting his numb life in a hotel in Los Angeles, drinking, smoking, having private sexy shows in his room, driving his Ferrari, which even once breaks down leaving him on the road. When his 11-year old daughter appears, something is shaken inside his fragile and inconsistent world, he at least starts feelings something. Not that he changes so much, his relation with Cleo remains in a way made up of short exchanges of words, very rare demonstrations of love, but it's a positive relation, where each one is able to accept the other for what he/she is (and shouldn't affection work like this?). The merit of Sofia Coppola (this is the first movie directed being a mother herself) is to depict this relation in a realistic way, the father won't undergo an extraordinary change, as it would be improbable and unrealistic, he just starts embracing the idea that there can be a meaning, somewhere. As the almost intolerable slowness, well, it is the best way to render the complete void and nonsense in the protagonist's life, where everything is a bore, and time a burden, we no doubt feel the oppression of his unprofitable passing of time, of his lack of real acquaintances, of sane company, of real life, mainly in the first part of the movie. When Cleo appears, time turns into profitable and meaningful, and so he can spend hours on the edge of a swimming pool, without speaking, but her daughter laying beside him makes a substantial difference of quality. The always delicate touch, typical of Sofia Coppola' style, is to be appreciated also here, although certainly the director, now become a mother, shows a more mature and more lucid, in a way more simple, consciousness about life, which seems here more clear, definite and evident than in her previous productions, things are black or white, you cannot hide behind too many complications, when you have born a child, and when you realize that she is the only precious thing you have done in your life, you know what kind of man you have to be.

'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.