Review #18: Somewhere

Somewhere

Release Date: September 3, 2010
Writer: Sofia Coppola
Director: Sofia Coppola

Logline: After withdrawing to the Chateau Marmont, a passionless Hollywood actor reexamines his life when his eleven-year-old daughter surprises him with a visit. (Source IMDB) Drama. 97 min.
Bechdel Test: Passed all three tests. Barely.

Review

I’m generally pretty on board with slow movies where not a lot happens - that’s not the case with Somewhere. It was so slow and so boring that I spent the entire film asking stupid questions to try and distract myself from how much I hated the movie.  Questions such as:

• Why are the synchronized pole dancers not doing a better job at being synchronized
• Why is Johnny Marco obsessed with white Tshirts
• How does this 11 year old kid know how to make eggs benedict??
• Should I be embarrassed that I can’t make eggs benedict?
• Is she ice skating to Gwen Stefani’s “Cool” because the ice rink is cold and she’s trying to be clever - or does she just love this song? 
• Should I pause this movie to youtube that song and also google Gwen Stefani’s life history? That seems like a better way to spend this hour and a half.
• But seriously, how do you make eggs benedict?

Every scene seemed to drag on and on until it was so uncomfortable that I was praying for the next scene to start. Some might say this was brilliantly intentional - it's supposed to show how terrible it is for Johnny to be stuck in the monotony of his awful life.  Others might suggest that since I was bored, I'm not smart enough to really get what Coppola was going for. To those people I would say: #1 I once won a Sudoku solving contest so I'm pretty smart. #2 I don't care if there is insight to be found in each painfully drawn out moment, I hated it anyway.

To be fair, I enjoyed both Stephen Dorff and Elle Fanning and their performances were great. There were even some scenes that were funny and others that were perfectly sweet. Unfortunately, the performances and handful of okay scenes were drowned out by the slow pace of the film.

There should’ve been a lot more father/daughter bonding and whole lot less of Johnny silently waiting for his plaster mask mold to set. I loved seeing the two of them watch an old Friends episode while sampling a plethora of gelato flavours.  I loved watching them play Guitar Hero while discussing family stories. I loved how they did the tea party at the bottom of the swimming pool. Why couldn't we just have had a full 97 minutes of that?

Portrayal of Women: Women mostly exist to cater to Johnny.  Wherever he goes, women throw themselves at him and he often takes advantage of this.

His daughter Cleo is smart and vivacious and she really brings a welcome refreshment of joy into Johnny's life. She's the one girl in the film that truly makes his life better instead of just adding to the ongoing misery he is always enduring.

The only reason this film passes the Bechdel is that there is short scene where one of Johnny's hookups has a brief conversation with Cleo over breakfast.  She manages to ask Cleo's age before launching right into a discussion about boys.  So it technically passes, but just barely.

Sisterhood Moment: I guess you could call the synchro pole dancing a sisterhood moment, the dancers were even real sisters - twins actually.  Like I said before, they probably should have practiced a little more before unveiling their big performance.

Rating: Negative 5 bowls of gelato and 1 black Ferrari

IMDb - Somewhere (6.4)
Wikipedia - Somewhere
Rotten Tomatoes - Somewhere (71%)