utorok 31. januára 2012

Hanna


I was reluctant to watch this after reading the brief summary of the plot on IMDB. With words like ‘assassin’, ‘mission’ or ‘intelligence agent’, it sounded a bit soulless. The thought of watching over 100 minutes of explosions and gunshots, without a lick of something tangible turned me off. Five minutes in, I was hooked.

Hanna is not what it seems upon the first glance. It’s a story about a sixteen-year-old girl that lives on the periphery of the world devoid of comforts, trained by her father Erik to kill, to learn the cold hard facts of how the gears of the world turn, yet completely unaware of what it’s actually like. Sounds just like high school, only without the killing part (I hope).

Her only goal in life is to kill her mother’s murderer and it’s her decision to push the switch and leave the remote forest in order to enter the world filled with things she’d ever only read about in a book, like music and people and electricity. I thought Saoirse Ronan who played Hanna was fascinating to watch as she melded deadliness and innocence of her character.

What particularly resonated with me was the connection Hanna found in a girl named Sophie. The contrast between the two characters was both poignant and amusing to watch as Sophie presented the opposite with her constant chattiness and girly tendencies. The scene where they talk hidden under the sheets with a night light on was probably the most touching in the entire movie.

The plot strides onwards as Hanna constantly evades men hired to kill her due to her ‘special heritage’. The attacks are instigated by Marissa, the intelligence agent stunningly played by Cate Blanchett. Funny how Hanna, the assassin whose DNA sets her up to be ruthless is so much more human than Marissa.

The movie spirals down to a tension filled sequences where both Hanna’s and her father’s lives hang on by a thread. I won’t spoil the ending for you, but I do recommend you to watch it. The acting is superb, the scenery is beautiful and personally, I was left with a feeling of wanting to see more, which is always a sign of a good movie.