Somewhere

TedFlicks Rating:

$6.75 ticket on a scale of $0 to $13.50

LIFESTYLES OF THE RICH AND FATUOUS…AGAIN

Sofia Coppola, daughter of the formidable Francis Ford Coppola, has emerged as a filmmaker of note in her own right.  She has a voice, a quirky one, which at times resonates in a way that makes auds look at how movies are made in a new way, with a sort of understated cynicism mixed with compassion.

Unfortunately, she has found a niche.  It’s the “lifestyles of the rich and fatuous” theme that she handled so well in “Lost in Translation” and repeated in the period piece, “Marie Antoinette.”  Coppola knows as much about Hollywood as anyone raised in it from birth.  In “Somewhere,” her latest effort as a director (she also gets writer and producer credit), she puts that knowledge to use as only an insider can.  It works.  The life of fictional film star Johnny Marco (Stephen Dorff) provides ample opportunity to skewer the rites of tinseltown.

Marco, when he is not on the set, is a hard-partying, heavy smoker who enjoys driving his Ferrari at high speed.  He scores groupies the way mere mortals attract mosquitoes on a summer night.  When he breaks his arm falling down the stairs at a party, someone sends him a pair of pole dancers as a get well present…Bambi and Cindy (played by  Kristina Shannon and Karissa Shannon who might as well be the Doublemint twins).  He eventually beds one of them.

It is in the details that “Somewhere” shines.  Coppola captures spot-on the groupies, the press tours, the hangers on, and the grunt work of being a movie star.  Dorff’s Marco is at least a good natured guy who takes everything — except a stripping masseur — in stride.  She also reveals her connections.  Sharp-eyed filmgoers will spy Benicio del Toro in an uncredited role.

It is in the story that “Somewhere” lacks.  Johnny Marco has an ex-wife, Layla (Lala Sloatman) and a daughter, Cleo (Elle Fanning), who at age 11 is a Hollywood veteran.  After a weekend visit with dad, who lives in the Chateau Marmont Hotel, Layla dumps Cleo on Johnny saying that she has to go away for a while for reasons unclear.  Fanning’s Cleo is one of film’s most charming characters.  The kid (who is 12 years old, close to her character’s age), is a scene stealer.  She clearly adores both mom and dad and has a keen bull-bleep detector, a must in a Hollywood child.  Cleo maintains a positive attitude, save for one brief crying jag about mom’s disappearance, throughout.  She is the kid one wishes one had.

Cleo accompanies Johnny on his trip to Milano for the opening of his new picture, goes on the press junkets, gets dressed to the nines as his “date” for an Italian TV award show, and handles it all like a seasoned pro.

She even has the good sense to roll her eyes when a hot Italian groupie who has picked up daddy makes breakfast in their hotel suite.  In case anyone has got the wrong idea about Johnny Marco, drop it now.  He’s a good dad.  Cleo is in his care until she leaves for summer camp a few weeks hence.  He does a good job.

But “Somewhere” goes nowhere.  The father-daughter bonding thing is fine.  But pic is essentially plotless.  It’s sort of a good reality TV show, if there were such a thing.  It’s a sliver of the lives of two people, Johnny and Cleo, and if fails to develop dramatic tension.  To address that Coppola tacks on a cliché ending.

Pic does, however, benefit from some interesting shooting and recording.  Coppola and cinematographer Harris Savides employ from time to time a technique in which the camera is static and the action moves in and out of camera range.  It works.  Sound recording, given the extensive use of off-mike dialogue, could be awful, but it works and aids in the storytelling by giving audio cues of the lines’ relative importance.

At 97 minutes, “Somewhere” is not torture to watch.  Sarah Flack’s editing is up to the job.  Pic is an amusing look inside Hollywood for those so inclined.  But it is time for Coppola to move on.  The same techniques — heck, almost the same story — change the names and places — were employed in “Lost in Translation” with Bill Murray as the bored Hollywood star making commercials for Japanese whisky in Tokyo.  The tension Coppola developed between Murray and Scarlett Johansson made “Lost in Translation.”  Unfortunately for “Somewhere,” it never engages the audience on a similar level.

“Somewhere” is rated R for language and sexual situations, most notably a scene in which Johnny arrives at his hotel suite only to find Laura Ramsey naked in his bed save for a sailor cap.  The sight alone is worth the ticket price.

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