Somewhere (2010)
Somewhere (USA) Directed by Sofia Coppola Written by Sofia Coppola Starring Stephen Dorff; Elle Fanning; Chris Pontius; Lala Sloatman
There has, in recent years, seemingly been a lot of negative verbiage dedicated to the relative abilities of writer/director Sofia Coppola. At 39, with four features under her belt (after shorts Lick the Star (1996); Bed, Bath, and Beyond (1998), she is still in the beginnings of her career. While critical response to her previous work has varied, a case can be made that she has produced one excellent film (Lost in Translation (2003), and two interesting though flawed ones (Virgin Suicides (1999); Marie Antoinette (2006). Somewhere falls somewhere short of the heights achieved withTranslation, but Coppola continues to produce work that, at the very least, places her in a select group of American filmmakers whose work bears watching each time out of the box.
It’s an interesting phenomenon - the Sofia bashing, especially for a writer/director with an Academy award, and an Oscar nomination for best director. Perhaps it is because she is viewed by some as a dilettante, handed the keys from her producer/director father Francis, whose company produces her films. Perhaps it has to do with her much derided acting performance in Godfather III (an appearance that was one of seven she made in her father’s films). Perhaps it’s her hipster persona or her taste for eighties music, rock singers, fashion, and the French? Perhaps it’s merely the fact that she is a woman working on the fringes of the system in a highly male dominated profession?
Regardless, Coppola seems resolute about continuing to make personal films, and there is a quality to the work that is becoming definable. A certain sense of stylized flatness pervades the results of her short career, a general feeling of ennui that in another time might have been termed melancholia. Highly influenced by classic European cinema, Coppola’s aesthetic favors spare scripts with a dearth of dialogue; long, extended takes (many with very little action); a kind of well orchestrated raw photographic style (from the eminently talented Harris Savides), and an attention to character over plot.
Stephen Dorff stars as Hollywood actor Johnny Marco, an adult child living a hedonistic lifestyle while camped out in Hollywood at The Chateau Marmont. Located on the Sunset Strip, the exclusive hotel is infamous for its rock and Hollywood star clientele, a place where the famous have historically decamped, hid out, and practiced their debauchery. Coppola takes her time, allowing us to settle in to Marco’s between films existence, which seems to include a lot of drinking, pill popping, chain smoking, massages, and anonymous sex with a host of attractive star-struck young women.
Johnny is disaffected, numb, bored, depressed, and enveloped in a perennial cycle of self-indulgence. A disembodied voice named Marg calls him at the hotel when he has to be somewhere, often simply to inform him who will pick him up in the lobby, and everywhere he goes he is catered to and fawned over, while text messages are sent to him asking questions like, why are you such an asshole? He puts substances in his body and engages in anonymous sex because they’re available - easy fixes his money and fame afford him.
When Cleo (Elle Fanning), his eleven year old daughter, arrives at the hotel, first for a day visit, and then for a longer stay, we get a further glimpse into Johnny’s inner life, though glimpses are all we ever get in this restrained piece of cinema. Coppola does not feel responsible for our knowing full back stories or connecting all the dots. We are forced to take these characters how we get them. Cleo’s beautiful smiling young face, her grown-up ability to order food and make meals for herself, her exuberance when playing a video game serving as brightness against Johnny’s deadened existence. Dorff’s Johnny is, in many ways, a selfish, reprehensible sort, though his ineffectual love for his daughter is obvious. Cleo represents something real and true and innocent in the jaded sphere he inhabits, and it is during the scenes with his daughter that we see him momentarily distracted from his various methods of self-medication.
The relationship between Johnny and Cleo is touching, though not romanticized. Always underlining their desultory time together, playing Guitar Hero and Wii, having a card game, eating gelatto while watching a movie, lying by the sun, is the knowledge that this is a father who has neglected a daughter who loves him. He plows through women, conquering and discarding them as if they were used Kleenex, and in many ways his daughter is just another on the list. Their connection is obvious and natural though, and Coppola beautifully captures a host of small moments between the two. When emotion is finally displayed, it hits with a contolled burst, and feels eminently believable and fully earned,
Coppola’s collaboration with the father of her children, and Phoenix lead singer, Thomas Mars, continues, and the soundtrack fuses original and eclectic popular music from disparate artists like Gwen Stefani, Amerie, Bryan Ferry, and the Foo Fighters. An odd open (a tip to Vincent Gallo’s Brown Bunny perhaps?) and close (despite the attempt, no interesting Translation close, here) mar slightly what is otherwise a taut, well rendered offering from a Hollywood insider who, having command over her own established style, knows her story inside and out.