Fascinating, minimalist Somewhere is pure experience. With long, beautifully realized scenes and little dialogue, Sofia Coppola directs her steady, unsentimental gaze at one man’s meaningless existence in Hollywood. This could be Tinseltown gazing at its own navel. Somewhere is now playing at Hartford area theaters.
Somewhere immediately plunges into the emptiness of Johnny Marco (Stephen Dorff), as his black Ferrari circles a deserted race track for several long minutes. The shrill engine is nerve grating. At last, Marco stops the car and gets out.
A movie star between jobs who lives at Los Angeles’ famed Chateau Marmont, Marco is bored. A regular on the party circuit, he stumbles downstairs one night and breaks his arm. In this solid role for talented Dorff, the actor’s natural sweetness makes him likeable even as an aimless mess.
Lingering in bed, Marco watches a pair of blonde, teenage pole dancers cavort in his room. Coppola captures the synchronized moves of the grinning, nubile pair languorously. A randy tune blares from a portable DVD player. On pain meds, Marco barely notices and nods off. It’s a Fellini-like moment with the pathos of Bill Murray sitting on his bed in Lost in Translation.
The first one to sign Marco’s arm cast – and a redeeming bright spot in her dad’s foggy depression – is his daughter Cleo. Played with style, honesty and clarity by 12-year-old Elle Fanning, Cleo is dropped off periodically by Marco’s self-involved ex Layla (Lala Sloatman). When Layla faces a crisis, she asks Marco to take Cleo for a few days before sending her off to camp.
Marco brings Cleo along on a publicity trip to Italy. Through a child’s eyes, we see some of the wonders of his experience during their stay at Milan’s luxurious Hotel Principe Di Savoia. Cleo gets to swim in the private pool in her dad’s suite while he lounges in the hot tub. In the middle of the night, Marco orders them two of every flavor from the hotel’s sorbet menu. Fanning is superb as a Hollywood child, and seizes the opportunity to reveal her insecurities during a tearful scene in the Ferrari.
With Cleo away at camp, Marco settles into his usual routine – one-night stands, parties and drinking alone. The ornate, seedy interiors of the Chateau Marmont reflect his inner landscape. Anything goes where the glamorous and rudderless walk like ghosts.
To prepare for his next role, Marco attends a fitting where his entire head is covered with plaster. For 40 minutes he sits still, breathing through two small holes. His terror is palpable. It’s another scene where Coppola lingers to the point of acute discomfort. Later the actor tries on the prosthetic made for him. “Jesus!” he exclaims at his 80-year-old image in the mirror.
Benicio Del Toro’s cameo adds a classy touch. When Marco recognizes him in the hotel elevator, the two grunt niceties in a brief, warm moment.
Coppola and cinematographer Harris Savides achieve a realism that can be disarming as Marco fumbles into a search for true worth. Somewhere is a fine addition to Coppola’s explorations of loneliness and life meaning in Lost in Translation, The Virgin Suicides and Marie Antoinette.
In an interview in Cinema Blend, the director spoke about Johnny Marco. “I had a dozen different people in mind when I was writing the character . . . I wanted him to be his own guy based on folklore.”
Coppola drew on childhood memories of spending time with her father, director Francis Ford Coppola. “I remember him teaching me about craps in a casino and that’s something that was fun that kids don’t usually get to do. So that aspect of the kind of fun, bigger-than-life, father I tried to put in the story.”
If you like Somewhere, you might enjoy Wild Grass, I Am Love, I'm Still Here.
Somewhere 2010 / R / 1 hour, 37 min
Cast Overview: Stephen Dorff, Elle Fanning, Chris Pontius, Erin Wasson, Alexandra Williams, Nathalie Fay, Kristina Shannon, Karissa Shannon, Laura Chiatti, Lala Sloatman
Director: Sofia Coppola
Genres: Drama, Indie Drama
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