Somewhere

A beautiful meditation on loneliness and love
Somewhere is a beautiful meditative film about Johnny Marco (played by Stephen Dorff), a lonely, bored, dissolute Hollywood star who, by spending time with his daughter, Cleo (played by Elle Fanning) learns to love again. Elle Fanning is absolutely delightful in the role -- she is so sweet, natural, and at times, charmingly awkward. Her youth and unpretentious beauty are an effective foil to Stephen Dorff's character, who parties hard on a regular basis and looks it. Johnny is in a state of existential ennui; he lacks emotional connection with others and lives a life of instant gratification that is devoid of meaning. When Cleo's mother leaves Cleo with Johnny for an extended period of time, it gives him the chance to renew his relationship with her and thaw his heart. By learning to love Cleo, Johnny is forced to face the emptiness in his life and decides to change.

Not quite over the rainbow...
Being the fan of Sophia Coppola that I am, `Somewhere' was my most anticipated film from last year. I literally could not wait to see it, so much so that I downloaded it to my computer months before it was released in theaters near me so that I could watch it.

For me, `Somewhere' doesn't quite live up to my expectations.

First things first, this is not a bad film at all. In fact, it is a very good film. Some of my friends have noted that they feel this is Coppola's most mature offering, and in many ways I totally agree. She has a beautiful knack for fleshing out the humanity in her stories with such graceful subtlety. She masters that here, allowing the fluid movement of the scenes to do most of the talking. While some would make sweeping statements that this is, `by far', we worst film, I can only half agree. While she shows definite maturity here, this is my least favorite of her films. In that same respect though, I can't say `by far' since the film is...

coppola knows about the reality of movie stars
sophia coppola, the writer and director, is francis coppola's daughter. her cousin is nicholas cage. another cousin is jason schwartzman (Bored to Death on HBO), whose mother is talia shire (Rocky), francis's sister. sofia was married to director spike jonze. she has probably known no one but movie people her entire life. her movie is about a movie star who ,far from being a fascinating guy, is closer to being a total zero in personality. and, of course, everyone who barely knows him thinks he is fascinating. sofia coppola paints a devastating portrait of a top actor in the first half of this movie.

i found it very funny but you might miss the satire it is so low key. johnny, played by stephen dorf, is like an unmade bed walking around. he can barely be bothered to comb his hair, change his clothes or do much but passively participate. he hires twin pole dancers and falls asleep during their act. he falls asleep during sex. his costar finds him a big nothing. women...

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