Hanna
Later this year, you will likely flock to your local movie theater to watch a young man become a super soldier at the height of WWII. This month, you can see a somewhat less stylized but no less sensational story about a young girl who was born into a similar life of action and international adventure. Her name is Hanna, and she can kill you with your own knife while it's still in your hand.
Joe Wright (Atonement) directs this well-balanced coming of age story set within the cold and unforgiving world of assassins and espionage. The film follows the titular heroine, who has lived a reclusive life in the forest with her rogue CIA-agent father, on a vengeful mission that takes her all across the map. Trained to survive in the harshest conditions and fight like the spawn of Lara Croft and Rambo, she is pursued by deadly adversaries as she inches closer to her primary target, a ruthless CIA handler who had mysterious past dealings with her Dad, all while discovering what life outside the woods is like.
While star Saoirse Ronan's visceral turn is a marvel to observe, so too is Wright's. Like his protagonist, he ventures into the unknown with this material, taking the reigns of a film that couldn't be any more foreign to him. Coming off of past projects grounded in romance and realism, he forges new territory with Hanna, delivering a fresh approach to the at-times tired spy thriller. He presents the major plot points of the story patiently, delicately hinting at the big picture and always leaving you pining for more. Though the twist is ultimately predictable, the fun part is putting the pieces of the puzzle together on your own. You'll find more brilliance in his method by dissecting the picture piece by piece. His use of sound, in both the film's abstract score (from the sorely missed Chemical Brothers) and its effects, which phase in and out at calculated points, is in part a cinematic experiment that plays with perception in ways that audiences may not have experienced in a mainstream movie. There are also a few visual motifs in select scenes (most notably a killer fight sequence that ends with Eric Bana exterminating a handful of Agency henchman) that tell a parallel visual tale to supplement the narrative.
Thematically, Hanna is even more complex. Screenwriters Seth Lochhead and David Farr explore the limitations of a disconnected mind in their Black List-certified script, giving their curious character the opportunity to learn much about society and her self while hitchhiking across continents. Of greater significance is the culture clash of Western materialism and Eastern minimalism, manifested in the form of a British family traveling abroad that Hanna befriends (the young daughter, played by Jessica Barden, is a poster child for consumerism) and the contrast between Cate Blanchett's Marissa Wiegler and Bana's Erik Heller.
Provoking thought while providing plentiful doses of popcorn entertainment, the film works on so many levels and is a unique entry in the collective canon of assassin-on-the-run flicks. Its story is far from groundbreaking, but Wright's surreal visuals and anti-establishment attitude make Hanna a radically original action experience.
Hollywood.com rated this film 4 1/2 stars.