Review: 'Somewhere' is an enjoyable film despite its flaws

Film: Somewhere (A)
Starring: Stephen Dorff, Elle Fanning
Director: Sofia Coppola
Rating: **1/2

Flashing cameras, red-carpets, expensive hotels might be the usual Hollywood clichés, but Sofia Coppola’s Somewhere opens with a sports car circling a dusty road several times until it stops and the protagonist, Johnny Marco (Dorff), steps out in his cowboy boots. Cut to Johnny walking down a staircase with his entourage of pretty babes and he falls flat on his face.

Johnny has a suite in the iconic Chateau Marmont, he has pole dancers tucking him in, and he drives a swanky sports car. An awkward father to 11-year-old Cleo (Fanning), Marco lives an empty life between jobs. He attempts to fill the emptiness with alcohol, parties and women.

When Cleo’s mum decides to take off, she leaves Cleo entirely to Marco. The father and daughter are slightly awkward around each other.

Dorff hardly manages to pull off a popular movie star. Fanning plays a daughter wiser than her years with ease. Fanning’s ability to portray a child-like maturity is phenomenal. She is comfortable as she rustles up eggs benedict and she is rather grown-up as she makes lists on a MacBook while her father and his best friend eat and she is silently dignified as she sips water while a woman in a bathrobe sits at their breakfast table.

Over their trip to Italy to promote his film, Marco starts bonding with his daughter. In Lost in Translation, Coppola showed two strangers feeling a sense of belonging in an alien land. Now, in Somewhere, she tells a story of a father and daughter who develop a bond in an alien land (even though it is only for a little bit).

Somewhere is quite reminiscent of Coppola’s Lost in Translation; however, it does not evoke similar feelings. The film is off to a slow start and picks up pace as Cleo enters the picture. After Cleo’s departure, the audience feels Marco’s exasperation and emptiness; however, the audience could get bored with it just as soon.

Despite its slowness, the film is enjoyable, especially because of Coppola’s ability to ‘show’ rather than ‘tell’.

Marco’s transformation from a man-boy who wants little to do with his daughter to a man who feels lost and listless without her is extremely subtle.

Our verdict: Definitely an interesting casual watch, but don’t beat yourself up too much if you miss it in the theatres. It could make for a great DVD watch.