By Matt Brunson
SOMEWHERE
*1/2
DIRECTED BY Sofia Coppola
STARS Stephen Dorff, Elle Fanning
For my money, Sofia Coppola’s 2003 Lost in Translation was such an unblinking masterpiece — one of the two or three best films of its entire decade — that it’s a shock to witness the near-worthlessness of Somewhere. In a general sense, both films are similar, focusing on a Hollywood superstar who combats his loneliness by spending time with a younger woman. But whereas Lost in Translation managed to be both personal and universal at the same time, Somewhere feels like the desperate last act of a filmmaker who was at a loss for her next project and decided to simply film some navel-gazing ruminations that will mean little to anyone aside from herself.
A somnambular Stephen Dorff is cast as Johnny Marco, an A-list actor who passes endless amounts of (screen) time driving his Ferrari in circles, watching strippers pole-dance in his hotel room and fielding idiotic questions from journalists on a film junket. One day, his 11-year-old daughter Cleo (one-note Elle Fanning) from his failed marriage turns up, and he attempts to get to know her; the pair end up spending endless amounts of (screen) time skating, playing Guitar Hero, and knocking back over a dozen Jagerbombs apiece.
Oh, wait, scratch that last one — that’s what my fiancée and I each had to do to make it through this endurance test passing itself off as a motion picture. Frankly, I’ve seen more “motion” in a taxidermy display.
This article appears in Jan 25-31, 2011.
THANK YOU! THIS REVIEW MADE MY MORNING SO MUCH BETTER THAN MY WASTED FRIDAY NIGHT! I WORK AT A MOVIE THEATER AND GET FREE TICKETS AND AM STILL UPSET I USED THEM FOR THIS THING CALLED A MOVIE. I TOO WAS A FAN OF LOST IN TRANSLATION, BUT I AGREE THAT THIS WAS A DADDY’S GIRL MOVIE PROJECT. THANK YOU AGAIN FOR THE LAUGHTER YOU BROUGHT ME THIS MORNING, AS TRYING TO FORGET THE DISASTER THAT WAS MY FRIDAY NIGHT WILL BE MADE EASIER BECAUSE OF YOUR THOUGHTS. THANK YOU THANK YOU THANK YOU!
i loved this movie. yes, i agree that it was sometimes overly personal, but i thought this only made the fanning/dorff relationship all the more poignant, all the more precious and all the more incredible. the endless scenes of nothing happening were meant to be metaphors for the emptiness in dorff/marco’s life. perhaps it was too artsy an execution, but that should only make it less accessible but not any less powerful.