Sitback, hangout, indulge.....SOMEWHERE

What’s a mega action star’s instinctive motivation for any role they take? Answer: their salary, what else? Is the life of the celeb-party animal and superficial adoration really what it’s all about?

Sofia Coppola’s artsy, new wave, European-like, lingering film, Somewhere probes the dull lifestyle of an overpaid Hollywood action star, the same way director Michelangelo Antonioni depicted the so-called “swinging” life of a fashion photographer in the influential Blow-Up (1966). Coppola and Antonioni come from different generations, but both filmmakers have an acute eye for what it’s like to be alone, when you’re never really alone.

The opening shot of Somewhere is of Stephen Dorff’s character, Johnny Marco, making the day pass by circling his expensive Ferrari in the middle of the desert. After a few laps, he gets out and glumly looks into the bright sky. He’s obviously bored, but if he’s so bored, why does he doe it? My initial response was that Dorff’s character never really knows what he wants out of life. It’s not his lucrative career, it’s not the drugs and the booze, it’s not the tiresome string of one night stands—it’s a human connection that he’s missing out of life.

Now, before you walk into the theater expecting my distinctive response to be written on the screen, than you’ll be terribly disappointed. This is a quiet and moody film, meandering through a small myriad of authentic characters, specifically the relationship between Johnny Marco and his estranged daughter, Cleo, played with great spontaneity by Elle Fanning, younger sister of Dakota Fanning.

Sofia Coppola’s work evokes her own sensibility and privileged childhood. The characters in her films are never truly outward with their emotions and are usually the non-traditional lone-wolves of a glitzy lifestyle. Somewhere challenges the viewers to come up with their own conclusion of Coppola’s emotionally ambivalent characters.

Sure, some of her work is a bit self-indulgent, but it’s quite hard to make a highly personal film without being a tidbit self-indulgent. This isn’t Sofia Coppola’s greatest achievement, but it’s nice to go to the movie theaters and hangout with characters that seem like they have it all, but still feel utterly empty inside. Like the title, the central character doesn’t go anywhere, but he has to end up somewhere, and it’s not about a place, it’s about a human connection; discovering a valid state of mind.

*** (out of four stars)