What is Hanna? it certainly isn't what I thought it'd be. At all. Chances are it isn't like anything you've seen before. Weird, wild and beautiful, it's Jason Bourne by way of the Brothers Grimm, David Lynch by way of Hans Christian Andersen, Luc Besson and Tom Tykwer by way of huntsmen, evil witches and big, bad wolves. It doesn't hesitate, it hurtles along. It doesn't flinch, it charges. It prowls and pounces, haunts and disarms. It has a pulse, a heartbeat, a rhythm. It roars. It cackles. It sings a lullaby. It hums. It whistles. And, really, you should stop reading right there. The joy is in the discovery, as they say, and Hanna is best served with as few expectations as possible. Whether you ultimately find it baffling or bewitching is, frankly, beside the point. It's well worth watching -- experiencing, rather -- and you'll be hard- pressed to deny the thrill of such a bizarre, breathtaking ride.
Once upon a time there was a very special girl named Hanna Heller (Saoirse Ronan). Since she was two-years-old, Hanna has lived in the secluded forests of Finland with her father, Erik (Eric Bana). There, she's learned to survive, hunt, fight... and kill. When she turns sixteen, her father decides she's ready to hear the truth and to be presented with a choice: continue living in seclusion or flip a switch on a dormant tracking device and alert a vindictive CIA chief, Marissa Wiegler (Cate Blanchett), to her whereabouts. It seems Marissa has been searching for Erik and Hanna since she failed to assassinate the pair fourteen years ago, and Hanna is all too anxious to meet the woman who murdered her mother and sent her father into hiding. The choice is simpler than Erik had hoped. Hanna flips the switch the moment he steps away from the cabin. And then? Then all hell breaks loose. Hanna, captured and taken to a CIA facility in Morocco, kills a woman she believes is Wiegler, steals intel about her true origins, escapes into the desert and hitches a ride with a family of tourists bound for Germany, where she plans to rendezvous with her father. But she'll have to stay one step ahead of Marissa in a strange, alien world of television, traffic and the internet, and dodge the CIA witch's fiends, led by the maniacal Isaacs (Tom Hollander).
Hanna leaps over vast genre chasms with the grace of the fully realized dark-fantasy, action- thriller hybrid it is. Director Joe Wright has created something so wholly in tune with his vision, so true to its own delirious delights and hard-hitting flights of fancy that it floats high above the Hollywood fray. It begins simply enough, explodes soon thereafter, and then slowly reveals its secrets and intentions with meticulous precision, descending into increasingly offbeat, grotesque territory only after enchanting viewers with its siren call. Wright pushes, sure. But he knows exactly how much to push his audience at any given moment. He challenges convention, but knows just how much pressure to apply. He demands a lot of those watching the film for the first time, but never more than they should be able to bear. (And Hanna is even better on repeat viewings.) His mad-hatter action opera doesn't overwhelm or overreach; it hypnotizes, mesmerizes and casts a spell with fierce fist fights, coming-of-age tenderness, cruel villains, audaciously long tracking shots (complete with brawls sans cutaways or cheap edits), dazzling photography, and organic electronica (from The Chemical Brothers, no less).
Ronan doesn't buckle beneath the weight of Hanna or Hanna, and approaches every scene with the same killer instinct her adolescent assassin approaches an assailant. Wright and Ronan seem acutely aware of how easily the film could plummet over the edge and adapt (or die) accordingly, creating a young protagonist both beyond her years and subject to childlike awe. (Hanna squeals with girlish excitement at the sight of a passing plane mere moments after gutting a deer and battling her father on a frozen lake.) Elsewhere, Blanchett gobbles down helpless scenes with toothy vehemence and devilish zeal (she's the Wicked Stepmother, the Foul Enchantress and the Evil Queen), Hollander licks his deranged chops and bears his fangs with sick pleasure, and Bana brandishes his best Bana -- the somber but soulful soldier -- and lends balance to an eccentric ensemble. The travelers Hanna joins -- a family played with flaky bohemian funk by Jason Flemyng, Olivia Williams and kinetic ball of energy Jessica Barden -- may be the straw that crack some filmfans' backs, but their presence is only jarring initially and only the first time through. Further viewings (and a bit of patience) illuminate their true purpose -- no wandering fairy tale princess would be complete without a band of quirky creatures and peculiar new friends, be they dwarfs, talking forest denizens or free- spirited European hippies -- and make them every bit as essential to Hanna as anything else. It's through her temporary surrogate family that she learns things her father neglected to teach her, for reasons that become painfully clear as the film nears its endgame.
But not everyone will be so forgiving. Hanna is a divisive genre-bender that will infuriate as many cinephiles as it entrances. Even if you and I typically see eye to eye, we may not this time around. Wright's fourth feature film defies expectation and explanation, and must be seen to be believed. It may not ensnare you, but it'll sink its claws in for two spellbinding hours. Hanna will probably make its way onto my Top Ten list this year, and it will undoubtedly find its way onto some of your lists as well, albeit as one of the Worst Films of 2011. You'll just have to brave its dark, demented forests to find out.
Once upon a time there was a very special girl named Hanna Heller (Saoirse Ronan). Since she was two-years-old, Hanna has lived in the secluded forests of Finland with her father, Erik (Eric Bana). There, she's learned to survive, hunt, fight... and kill. When she turns sixteen, her father decides she's ready to hear the truth and to be presented with a choice: continue living in seclusion or flip a switch on a dormant tracking device and alert a vindictive CIA chief, Marissa Wiegler (Cate Blanchett), to her whereabouts. It seems Marissa has been searching for Erik and Hanna since she failed to assassinate the pair fourteen years ago, and Hanna is all too anxious to meet the woman who murdered her mother and sent her father into hiding. The choice is simpler than Erik had hoped. Hanna flips the switch the moment he steps away from the cabin. And then? Then all hell breaks loose. Hanna, captured and taken to a CIA facility in Morocco, kills a woman she believes is Wiegler, steals intel about her true origins, escapes into the desert and hitches a ride with a family of tourists bound for Germany, where she plans to rendezvous with her father. But she'll have to stay one step ahead of Marissa in a strange, alien world of television, traffic and the internet, and dodge the CIA witch's fiends, led by the maniacal Isaacs (Tom Hollander).
Hanna leaps over vast genre chasms with the grace of the fully realized dark-fantasy, action- thriller hybrid it is. Director Joe Wright has created something so wholly in tune with his vision, so true to its own delirious delights and hard-hitting flights of fancy that it floats high above the Hollywood fray. It begins simply enough, explodes soon thereafter, and then slowly reveals its secrets and intentions with meticulous precision, descending into increasingly offbeat, grotesque territory only after enchanting viewers with its siren call. Wright pushes, sure. But he knows exactly how much to push his audience at any given moment. He challenges convention, but knows just how much pressure to apply. He demands a lot of those watching the film for the first time, but never more than they should be able to bear. (And Hanna is even better on repeat viewings.) His mad-hatter action opera doesn't overwhelm or overreach; it hypnotizes, mesmerizes and casts a spell with fierce fist fights, coming-of-age tenderness, cruel villains, audaciously long tracking shots (complete with brawls sans cutaways or cheap edits), dazzling photography, and organic electronica (from The Chemical Brothers, no less).
Ronan doesn't buckle beneath the weight of Hanna or Hanna, and approaches every scene with the same killer instinct her adolescent assassin approaches an assailant. Wright and Ronan seem acutely aware of how easily the film could plummet over the edge and adapt (or die) accordingly, creating a young protagonist both beyond her years and subject to childlike awe. (Hanna squeals with girlish excitement at the sight of a passing plane mere moments after gutting a deer and battling her father on a frozen lake.) Elsewhere, Blanchett gobbles down helpless scenes with toothy vehemence and devilish zeal (she's the Wicked Stepmother, the Foul Enchantress and the Evil Queen), Hollander licks his deranged chops and bears his fangs with sick pleasure, and Bana brandishes his best Bana -- the somber but soulful soldier -- and lends balance to an eccentric ensemble. The travelers Hanna joins -- a family played with flaky bohemian funk by Jason Flemyng, Olivia Williams and kinetic ball of energy Jessica Barden -- may be the straw that crack some filmfans' backs, but their presence is only jarring initially and only the first time through. Further viewings (and a bit of patience) illuminate their true purpose -- no wandering fairy tale princess would be complete without a band of quirky creatures and peculiar new friends, be they dwarfs, talking forest denizens or free- spirited European hippies -- and make them every bit as essential to Hanna as anything else. It's through her temporary surrogate family that she learns things her father neglected to teach her, for reasons that become painfully clear as the film nears its endgame.
But not everyone will be so forgiving. Hanna is a divisive genre-bender that will infuriate as many cinephiles as it entrances. Even if you and I typically see eye to eye, we may not this time around. Wright's fourth feature film defies expectation and explanation, and must be seen to be believed. It may not ensnare you, but it'll sink its claws in for two spellbinding hours. Hanna will probably make its way onto my Top Ten list this year, and it will undoubtedly find its way onto some of your lists as well, albeit as one of the Worst Films of 2011. You'll just have to brave its dark, demented forests to find out.