In 1990, in a time where director Francis Ford Coppola was thrown back into the spotlight finally surcoming to the pressure to direct The Godfather Part III, and having his daughter, Sofia Coppola, to hastily fill the role of Michael Corleone’s daughter. I believe purely based on that wooden performance, no one would have predicted that she would become one of the most prominent and respected female directors today (maybe all time? Possibly too soon).
Though she has made only four films, it is obvious that she is a talented, and unique director. Unlike her father, who tended to focus on epic backgrounds with great success in such films as The Godfather trilogy, Apocalypse Now, The Conversation (as small as it seemed), S.Coppola is a filmmaker who, despite sometimes employing epic backdrops, follows small and intimate stories of characters. From the Lisbon girls in The Virgin Suicides, an actor past his prime and a young lonely wife misplaced in Tokyo in Lost In Translation and even her historical epic, her own interpretation of the life of Marie Antoinette in the film of the same name, whilst filmed in the extravigence of Versailles, followed a young girl forced into the position of ruler.
Somewhere, her latest is possibly her most intimate portrait yet. It follows a Hollywood star/badboy Johnny Marco (Stephen Dorff), who spends his time between publicity at parties, watching ditzy pole dancers and lives within the famous Chateau Marmont in LA. Soon his daughter Cleo (Elle Fanning) arrives and thus there is some interesting father-daughter bonding to be had.
Some may pre-judge this film as Coppola backtracking after the flop of Marie Antoinette, returning to the winning formula of Lost In Translation which audiences and critics embraced. This superficial judgement is unfair to make, as, sure, it follows a Hollywood actor in a crisis, it envolves a hotel, but really, the similarities end there.
However upon seeing the film, i think it is safe to compare the film to Lost In Translation by way of what made that film a masterpiece, and made Somewhere just “good”. While Lost In Translation was a completely simple idea, it somehow felt so solid and packed with goodness. You had the humour of Bill Murray which is always entertaining. It followed a specific and previously untouched sensation, celebrities travelling to Japan to do outragious commericals for outragious sums of money. It also developed a very clear and believable friendship/romance through these characters, “lost in translation”, it’s simple and powerful, and was made only better by the chemestry and performances of Bill Murray and Scarlett Johansson. It also played as a love letter to Tokyo itself, effectively presenting the many nuances of the Japanese culture. It also contained an excellent soundtrack from Kevin Shields of My Bloody Valentine fame.
Of course Coppola couldn’t follow the same formula, it would have been wrong. But there was layers of interest within the film. In Somewhere, i admired the intimacy of the father-daughter relationship, one in which obviously is taken from S.Coppola’s own childhood, living in hotels, travelling with her super-star director father in the 70s and 80s. This is also where Stephen Dorff and Elle Fanning shine, effectively crafting something quite beautiful. It is when they are appart does the film slow down. The start of the film is almost wordless, shots are held for long effect, numerous scenes of sitting around and driving around are present, the sense of little happening is something that seems to grow over each film Coppola does and plot seems to become less and less visible.
My beef with the film is its how sparse its elements are, despite the rather beautiful message, but even then by the end is it crushed. The father daughter relationship does not develop as much as you want it to, they merely “chill”. And the sudden burst of the films meaning at the end seems against the grain, whereas in Lost In Translation, it unfolded beautifully. The same i think could be said for The Virgin Suicides and Marie Antoinette (despite all the sitting around, cake-eating there was within it).
The performances are vague, yet naturalistically subtle, Stephen Dorff, a man whose had little A-list success works within Marco, even though his character seems against what his career seems to be, and he is not as interesting as Bob Harris. Elle Fanning is freaky, by way of how fast she has grown, but she gives Cleo a wonderful honesty. There are also nice cameos from Chris Pontius of Jackass, Benicio Del Toro and Michelle Monaghan (who, for a person given the “and” credit, should have been given more than one brief, yet funny scene).
Also, the absense of a wonderful soundtrack is a disappointment on the level i can’t go download the album, there just wasn’t enough tracks. French band Phoenix provided score duties here, and really it seems they added one or two songs. But thats a personal qualm.
In the end, the film isn’t a bore, but it edges towards it on many occasions. It has some funny S.Coppola humour moments, and some nice heartfelt scenes as well. And it does have a fine message. It just feels too thin. It’s still a must for S.Coppola fans. I hope that her next film i find more enjoyable. Will she ever match the greatness of Lost In Translation? Who knows.
3.5/5
