New Review: Hanna

Child’s Play

A relatively new concept, that I credit to new Ebert Presents co-host Ignatiy Vishnevetsky, has recently entered my life. That is the idea that some filmmakers can be artists and some can be craftsman. The difference is that the former is one that sees the a story as a whole piece and executes the scenes to work in that whole. The latter is someone who sees the film as individual pieces to be concentrated on in their isolated states, and then find themselves rather disconnected when it comes to laying them in a linear plane. When it comes to this director, and this particular film, those charges can be laid at some parts of it, but as a whole the film does a nice job at being entertaining and partially insightful.

The extremely talented Saoirse Ronan plays the title character, a hard-edged girl living in the Antarctic with her equally tough father (Eric Bana). Her father trains her constantly in geography, language and combat and survival skills in anticipation for meeting the notorious Marissa Weigler (Cate Blanchett, sporting an American accent of unknown origin). It becomes clear that Hanna is part of some government mystery to which Marissa is a part of, and as Hanna treks around the world, the mystery becomes clearer.

Joe Wright has only made a handful of films, and I’ve never really been a huge fan of any of them. Atonement had a decent first half that was brought down immensely by a dour and dreary back end, and The Soloist was so self-indulgently melodramatic and dull that I thought is was one of the worst films of 2009. Hanna still can’t be defined as a good film on the whole because the static tone that bookends the film doesn’t feel genuine. The cold nature of the beginning and the ham fisted action sequences are well shot and executed, but they also feel mechanical, and it’s difficult to put any emotional force behind them. The scenes are well done, but they exist in a vacuum with no shelf-life. However, when the world opens around Hanna, and the tale becomes more of an allegory about growing up and experiencing the world around you, then it becomes interesting, and the emotions feel real and organic to the story. The script also indulges on the pros and cons of this story, but there’s some nice meat in the middle that elevates it form where it was and where it ends.

I almost can’t express how good of an actress Ronan is. Even in subpar work like The Lovely Bones, she still manages to come out unscathed. The character of Hanna does try to operate on many subtle levels, and Ronan rises to the occasion every time. Even when the story is ditching emotional credibility, Ronan is still there as an anchor to the film, and she sells it nicely. Blanchett is trying for the hammy villain role, and for the most part she does it well, though she plays better as a shadowy background figure. I like Bana as an actor, but he’s more of a plot point that a developed character here. There’s also some nice supporting (almost cameo) turns by Tom Hollander as a Mr. Wint/Mr. Kidd style assassin and Olivia Williams and Jason Flemyng as the free-thinking parents of a stranded family that Hanna bonds with. The family scenes are among the film’s most well acted and tender, and also stray away from the thriller chase movie and more into the realm of finding a family and maturity, something I think the film does a better job at commenting.

It’s strange that for a film billed as an action thriller, the parts where there are fast action set pieces and suspenseful thriller are actually the least interesting parts. Wright does his best as the craftsman to make these scenes entertaining (he sometimes fails with overdirection, but for the most part it succeeds), but the film works better when it lingers on intimate moments of the main character settling into a world she is learning to understand. By the time you get to the predictable, cop out of an ending, you really appreciate that tone of the film. I don’t think this is the masterpiece a lot of critics are selling it as, but as an entertaining thriller that does better with its tonal shift scenes, and a decent score by the Chemical Brothers, you could certainly do worse.

B