A
Pandora’s Box in a frozen Eden sets an innocent forth into a world she’s
read about but never seen. A child nurtured on the art of murder
without understanding mortality and loss will face both in short order.
All this and more spins across our eyes in a haze of hallucinogenic
Chemical thumps and Lynchian surrealism in director Joe Wright’s story
of a teenaged assassin, Hanna.
As
punishment for not sensing her father’s presence as she dispatches the
deer they’ll eat for a week, Hanna must drag the animal’s carcass on her
own across the tundra they call home for her lack of attention. It’s a
bummer but apparently nothing new to the snow-blonde pubescent who’s
more dismayed at missing the animal’s heart with her arrow than bearing
her father’s scorn. Life in this remotest of locales is the only one
she’s ever known. Her father’s lessons where academia takes a backseat
to those of assassination and survival are the only schooling she’s ever
had.
Hanna’s discovery of a remote beacon acts as the shiny red apple
of temptation in their arctic paradise. If Hanna flips a switch on the
small metal box, the government agent she’s been training to kill all
her life will come looking for her, effectively ending her harsh but
loving existence in the frozen plain. The girl on the edge of womanhood
can’t resist the lure of her life beginning and doing what she’s been
designed to do and so it begins. Both father and daughter evacuate
their home to begin a cat and mouse game with the CIA operative who
needed to dispatch them decades ago but failed and now needs to clean up
her mess. Deliberately falling into the hands of her captors, will
Hanna be able to complete her mission, free herself and reunite with her
father all while dealing with the vagaries and raging hormones of
puberty?
Hanna
seems an odd fit for the cat who directed the gorgeous 2005 version of
Pride and Prejudice and 2007’s toney Atonement. One might not expect
the helmer of such character-based fare to take on a full-tilt actioner,
but that’s exactly one of the most compelling aspects of this story of a
child assassin. Wright spends as much time invested in the soul of his
young cypher; a being raised for only one purpose, how well she can
kill. There’s been no society, no civilisation, no interaction with
anyone except her father and the wild animals she kills for their
survival. However well trained to her task, there are a million and one
eventualities in simply dealing with other humans that Hanna cannot
possibly prepare for. Being the literal babe in the woods, Hanna isn’t
ready for the sudden, striking need to have a friend or the onset of
normal teenage urges and it’s Hanna as a blank slate making her way
through the world that is fascinating and surprisingly touching.
What
she is ready for is complete annihilation and a MacGyver-like ability to
find a way out of sticky situations. Allowing herself to be captured in
order to get closer to agent Marissa Weigler brings about a much shorter
imprisonment than the CIA would have expected. Weigler, seeing the
situation careen out of hand calls in a strange operative who spends his
time not trying to kill people as the owner of a live porn theatre. The
pair tracks Hanna and her father across several continents, catching up
in a rundown, storybook-themed Berlin amusement park, surreally suitable
for this tale of an adolescent sleeper waking up in a very twisted
world.
Speaking of surreal; director Joe Wright makes the most of his
movie-loving background by creating Hanna more in the image of
avant-garde filmmaker David Lynch than director David Lean to whom
Wright is frequently compared. It is less epic, more experimentation
and just plain weirdness; like the midget running around the tableaus at
the rival assassin’s porno theatre. Cate Blanchett as Weigler, the
government agent with a shoe fetish and a really nasty past, is given to
bouts of self-inflicted unprettiness à la Diane Ladd from Wild at Heart
whenever she feels a bit low. A dizzying montage of camera styles is
unleashed as Hanna escapes the CIA interrogation bunker, skewing the
viewers’ perspective and further submerging us in the dream/twisted
fairy tale.
There isn’t enough that can be said about the score by
techno gods, The Chemical Brothers except that this film would not have
been the same without it. The second Hanna chooses the end of her old
life and assumes her murderous role, starting with an unfortunate Weigler decoy; the pounding soundtrack grabs you by the eardrums and
doesn’t let go. The excitement is heightened but never overpowered by
the insistent beats.
I’ve
lauded the work of young Saoirse Ronan since I first clapped eyes on her
in Wright’s Atonement and she hasn’t let me down since; even in fare
unworthy of her prodigious talent. Ronan melts into the alien character
inside and out, with hair and brows bleached by years in the sun and
snow, only Hanna’s piercing blue eyes hold any colour. She’s almost a
ninja in negative, so pale as to be invisible. Hanna has been trained
to adapt to any situation that might crop up; this includes being fluent
in a host of languages, making use of whatever space is handy to sleep
in and a bit of theft when necessary. Ronan makes every part of Hanna’s
fascinating character believable. She’s the clinical killer with no
real grasp on the gravity of the lives she’s taking. Watching her find
friendship and romance in her travels is like watching a baby’s first
steps. Her first betrayal at the hands of someone close to her is a
devastation she doesn’t have time to process, as is her first real loss.
Ronan gives everything she has to the role, not only walking the
delicate tightrope between the innocence of her age and upbringing and
the cold-blooded acts she must commit, but handling Hanna’s physical
demands like an MMA champ. The fighting scenes are excellently
choreographed with the film’s “adapt or die” theme pervading even these
with guns, hand-to hand combat and anything that’s handy being used.
Ronan’s performance is a marvel as she imbues Hanna with the heart and
fearlessness of an actor twice her age.
If
there’s any reservation I had with Hanna, it was with its understandable
desire to reach a broader audience by opting for a PG-13 rating. The film
deserves to be seen and adored by the female demographic that never has
this type of film made for them, but I wish some of the action had shown
the brutality that surrounds and marks each of its characters. Still,
the action sequences are brilliantly staged and thrilling with the stars
doing much of their own stunts. The trademark Joe Wright long single
tracking shot alone -- Eric Bana as Hanna’s father makes his way through
a bus terminal and dispatches some enemies that really should’ve known
better – is worth the price of admission.
With
much more to it than its teenage assassin premise, Joe Wright’s Hanna is
a grim fairy tale about a girl’s coming-of-age, that’s also terribly
entertaining. Thrilling to both the eye and ear, Hanna stands apart as a
cerebral action movie.
~ The
Lady Miz Diva
April
8th, 2011
Click here for our
coverage of the Hanna NYC Junket.
Click
here for our coverage of the New York Comic Con Hanna Preview.
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