Hanna

Hanna

Year: 2011

Director: Joe Wright

Cast: Saoirse Ronan, Cate Blanchett, Eric Bana

In My Own Words

                Hands up those in Australia who remember Full Frontal? If you do, you know exactly what I will be talking about in this In My Own Words.

                I am, of course, going to be talking about the Eric Bana which we Australians knew back in the 1990’s. The Eric Bana who was on our television screens each Thursday night at 8:30pm. No, Full Frontal wasn’t an incredibly dramatic and intense drama series, it was Australia’s answer to Saturday Night Live with its collection of send up skits. Unfortunately, the series which I so loved came to an end in 1996, but the memories of Eric Bana as the comedian lives on.

                If someone had told me then that Bana was going to be one of the leading drama and action stars in Hollywood not even 10 years after the show finished, I would have been extremely confused of how anyone could take him seriously. He has definitely proved himself as a fantastic actor and I am very proud of how far our fellow Aussie has come. Yet, sometimes when I watch him in a movie, I am still expecting him to open his mouth and crack a joke or start up on of his famous impersonations as the Aussie bogan, Peter (pronounced “Poiter”), Australian television personality Ray Martin or his very funny portrayal of Tom Cruise. So Bana has gone from imitating the Hollywood heavy weights for a living, to being one of them. Ironic the way the world works out, isn’t it?

                These are my own words and here is my review.

Review

                What comes to mind when you think about a film about a child assassin? Violence, confrontation, uneasiness? Most likely words of this nature and nobody could blame you for thinking this. How about if the movie starts when the “child” in question is in the latter half of her teenage years which doesn’t really make the film about a child assassin, but about a young lady who has been trained as an assassin? Therefore, Hanna is a misunderstood film and rather than creating the controversy which one thinks it would, it is quite amazing really.

                Saoirse Ronan is Hanna, the sixteen year old who has been raised in the Finnish wild by her father, Erik (Eric Bana). As an ex- CIA agent, Erik has trained his daughter as soldier trained to kill. Hanna is sent into the world for the first time to travel across Europe and meet her father in Berlin. As soon as her presence is known in the outside world, she has agents on her tail wanting her dead and she comes face to face with the agent who killed her mother, Marissa (Cate Blanchett). Hanna learns what it is like to be a typical sixteen year old in the outside world and also learns who she really is.

                The story of Hanna may seem disturbing to some people, but it hardly seems disturbing on screen. Sure there is violence, which is to be expected in a film about an assassin, yet the story is really played out as a piece of art. The storyline and script itself is good, but the techniques used to bring the story to the screen are far more impressive than the writing.

The cinematography is just beautiful. There are some amazing panoramic landscape shots and the editing during Hanna’s escape from the agents is brilliant. Director Joe Wright chooses some great locations for the film. The filming locations are very interesting and in the final scenes with playground equipment and the swans and wolf mouth keep everything fresh even at the end of the film. If you really want to get in depth, these images which are part of the landscape could also be seen as symbolic of the childlike innocence which has been destroyed.

In the scene when Hanna is escaping for the first time from the agents, the thrilling images are accompanied by a fantastic soundtrack by The Chemical Brothers. The best thing about this soundtrack is that it isn’t techno or electronic music pumping constantly throughout the film, but the sounds are mixed up depending on what is happening in the film at that point in time. One would think that the film was choreographed around the music by how well it matches up and not the other way around.

Saoirse Ronan, this young woman loves the roles that push her boundaries, and why not? She pulls them all off. As Hanna, she physically suits the role as the young girl brought up in the wild. She doesn’t really give a great deal of emotion in the scenes where it is needed, yet she is great as the girl who has never got to experience anything that a typical sixteen year old has. She also doesn’t show a tremendous amount of aggression, which one would normally expect in an assassin. There is aggression there, just not enough.

Eric Bana seems to glide through this role. Like Ronan, he doesn’t show a great amount of emotion. Yet, it is great to see him in another action role. He is a natural in this type of role and looks right at home in the action fighting sequences. Cate Blanchett is very good as the role of the evil agent. She really is quite terrifying and becomes the role with every ounce of her being.

Hanna is truly a work of art. It is visually beautiful and everything is pieced together with the greatest accuracy and care. It is always a great joy to see a film know that it is a piece of art and live up to it.

8/10

The Time Traveler's Wife

The Time Traveler’s Wife
Year: 2009
Director: Robert Shwentke
Cast: Eric Bana, Rachel McAdams

In My Own Words
Another film I had been looking forward to for a long time. I read “The Time Traveler’s Wife” at about this time last year while I was travelling in the USA. I really enjoyed the book written by Audrey Niffenegger. Although, I knew two things going into the movie. One was, the movie is very rarely as good as the book, so my expectations weren’t too high. Two, I knew it would be really hard to carry out a lot of the things in the book on the screen. So before going into the movie, I was guessing a lot of the ways in which director, Robert Shwentke would translate. Oh…and I was also expecting some tears! Especially if Rachel McAdams was able to carry out the same sort of performance she gave in “The Notebook” back in 2004. I was impressed with the casting of her and Eric Bana in the lead roles as the physically resembled the images I had seen of Henry and Clare in my mind whilst I was reading the book.
However, there were no tears. The trailer was a bigger tear-jerker than this movie. I don’t like crying, but crying in a movie is sometimes a good thing as it symbolizes the movie making emotional connection with the audience. In other words, a success! There was also many unanswered questions at the end of the movies for those who had not read the novel. So, you can see in which direction I will be going with this review.
These are my words and this is my review.

Review
Based on the best-selling novel by Audrey Niffenegger, “The Times Traveler’s Wife” is ultimately about the love between the time traveler, Henry and Clare. Henry has a genetic disorder that enables him to involuntarily travel back and forwards in time, which obviously causes strain on his relationship with Clare, who has to cope with his unexpected absences and unwelcome surprises. Fans of the novel would have been eagerly awaiting the release of this movie. However, like many movies based on novels, it does not reach the same heights and emotions that the book does. It was inevitable that “The Time Traveler’s Wife” was going to be turned into a romantic drama on the big screen and it was also inevitable that it would be difficult to be successful, but this interpretation has not done it much justice at all.

The direction of Robert Schwentke is, for one, commendable in this film. The locations in Chicago and the sets used are perfect for the film. Each scene is well edited and the special effects are also well done. There really are some beautiful images in the film, such as those of open meadows and falling snow. However, this is as far as the brilliance goes. The main thing that is missing from the film is the emotion. One would consider a film in which a woman is constantly losing and missing her husband and goes through several other traumatic experiences to be a tear jerker of sorts. However, there are few moments that the audience actually connects with the film and feels and emotional connection with the characters and their situations. Even the end, which should not leave a dry eye in the house, is lack lustre and not as heart warming as it should be. This is the major downfall of the movie. As said before, “The Time Traveler’s Wife” was always going to be a hard novel to convert to a movie, but the movie should pull emotion just with the same subject content.

The acting is also disappointing, which is a shame considering it is Eric Bana and Rachel McAdams in the lead. Bana is not bad as Henry, but he still could have taken the role much further, as is the case with co-star McAdams. The best acting throughout the whole movie from McAdams is right at the very beginning when she see’s Henry for the first time in the library. Her face completely fills with happiness and makes one excited about what is yet to come. The two look perfect on screen as Henry and Clare, yet there is very little character development and they do not succeed in gaining any empathy from the audience.

Overall, “The Time Traveler’s Wife” was a disappointment. Perhaps it will be more of a disappointment to those who have read rather than to those why are flying blind when entering the cinema. So much more could have been done with this film than was. Maybe the movie will be remade in another few years and will be more of a success then.

5/10