Movie Review: Hanna

There comes a point in any adolescent's life where the world is revealed for what it is and the time for childish games is gone. Hanna is fiercely portrayed by Saoirse Ronan as a 16 year-old who has no idea what it means to be a teenager. She has never had time for childish games, nor would she know what they are to begin with. Her father, played by Eric Bana, has raised her on the outskirts of the Arctic Circle, away from anything resembling a normal existence. She has trained all her life, learned every language, and would be a match for any James Bond or Jason Bourne.

I usually hesitate to expound on particulars of plot because I believe every moment in a movie should be a surprise. I need not worry here because, based on your viewpoint, there is very little plot. Hanna has been raised for a purpose but beyond that I will not say what. Cate Blanchett plays Marissa, a CIA handler who is hell-bent on finding Hanna or her father, either seems fine for her. The thought seems to be that all of these characters have a long and detailed backstory but we as the audience are thrust into the middle of everything and have to sort it out. This can work well, like in last year's The American, but the technique falters under the weight of character motivations. We are told very little about Marissa's need to find Hanna (the third-act exposition doesn't really help) or why her father has been hiding and training her. We are meant to infer the backstory through facial gestures and voice intonations but this hardly holds up well.

The film is an odd mix of twisted fairy tale and coming-of-age story. Hanna is constantly running into an assortment of characters on her journey and they provide the world view she has been missing. The most touching of these encounters is with a family on holiday in a camper. Jason Flemyng and Olivia Williams are free-spirit parents who seem to abhor the natural order of adulthood. They have a daughter, Sophie, who is meant to be an image of what Hanna most likely would have been if she had been raised like a “normal” teenager. At first she comes off as annoyingly vapid, like a British valley girl, but in the last forty minutes she has formed such a touching relationship with Hanna that I didn't want to see her go.

The side characters really are this movie's strength. I couldn't bring myself to really feel concern for Cate Blanchett or Eric Bana and that's a real disappointment. Cate brings her usual intense energy to the role of “mysterious antagonist” but without some hint as to why she is so ruthless, it almost feels forced. Her henchman, played by Tom Hollander, accomplishes the task for her. He is a vile and evil man but he makes the most of his time on the screen and you come to honestly fear him.

Joe Wright has directed this hodgepodge action vehicle with a real eye for 70's-style independent risks. You almost feel like he had ponied up the $60 million budget himself just so he could muck about. He has some great fun with Hanna and Sophie and takes what would normally be exciting set pieces in a spy movie and instead makes them off-kilter comedy pieces. I will note the Eric-being-followed-in-Berlin and the fight-in-a-playground sequences as particulars of this. Essentially, this movie hinges on two things: your patience with vague hints that play out over two hours with no resolution, and the use of unconventional style being grafted onto a usually formulaic format. I think it succeeds more often than not and should be used as an example of how future studio films might be better off taking a few risks.