Sofia Coppola takes up residence in LA’s Chateau Marmont for Somewhere, a mellow, quiet exploration of an aging movie star’s life. She resurrects Stephen Dorff as Johnny Marco, a caddish actor adrift in a senseless but coddled world. His blurry ennui is brought into focus when his daughter Cleo (Elle Fanning) comes to stay with him. Much like her oft-chronicled adolescent girls, Coppola’s film manages to be awkward and graceful at the same time, a mood piece with European leanings that remains stranded in LA.
The film opens with Johnny driving his Ferrari in circles, an image that patly sums up the theme. We see Johnny go through the motions of an embed at the Chateau Marmont, but his downward slump is surprisingly tame. There are some parties and some pills, but lots more gazing at the wall. He halfheartedly orders twin pole dancers to his room, but their routine, though athletically impressive, is anodyne and oddly sexless. Maybe he can relate to how they seem to go through the motions too? Choreographing to Foo Fighters doesn’t help. Coppola seems attached to this metaphor though and repeats the twins in a later, similar scene that doesn’t add much. What gets a chuckle is watching the twins deconstruct their portable poles and shove them into gym bags. Work is work, after all.
Johnny is a semi-famous actor, and his work as such is occasional promotion for his upcoming film. He mumbles through a press conference (with The Office’s Ellie Kemper as his chirpy handler) and flies to Milan to gamely accept an award at the hilariously campy Telegatto ceremony. But there are no temper tantrums or trashed hotel suites to break up the tedium. In all these dealings, Johnny is polite and professional, even submitting without complaint to special-effects artists who slather his head in a rubbery plaster. Like much of his life, he simply sits there, and breathes, and waits for something to happen.
That happening arrives in the form of his daughter Cleo, who lives with her mother but has occasional visits with Johnny. He drives her to her ice skating lesson and watches her perform, obviously contrasting her joy and innocence with his weary numbness. Coppola literally cuts from the blonde pole dancer of the previous night to Johnny’s blonde daughter, a visual link that is effective but creepy. It turns out that the only real relationship this man has with a woman happens to be with his pre-adolescent daughter. Even with Cleo in tow, Johnny continues to shag the sexy women who cross his path, but the way he shuffles off to these trysts indicates that he acts out of compulsion, not desire.
A modern-day Eloise, Cleo takes to the hotel life, even accompanying him to Italy. The Milan segment is a breath of fresh air — Coppola credibly captures the zany, oversexed Italian media, with their barrage of language and lusty enthusiasm for American celebrity. My favorite scene of the film is the awkward morning-after breakfast shared by Cleo, Johnny, and his Italian conquest from the previous night. She lounges, Pretty Woman-style, in her white robe, offering Cleo espresso and anecdotes about her teenage boyfriend, both unsolicited. The withering looks Cleo throws at Johnny when he joins them are priceless. It’s one of the few emotional or reactive scenes in the film, and though subtle and short, it stands out. I wish Coppola had pushed her story to provide more such moments.
Dorff gives an understated performance as the rumpled star. He is sheepish and confused, his face lightly lined and bruised, but still handsome enough for his celebrity to be believable. Fanning’s Cleo is a nice counterpart, bringing a youthful energy that the film desperately needs. But for a film ostensibly about the relationship between a father and daughter, it’s interesting that Cleo doesn’t make a major appearance until fairly late in the story, when her mother mysteriously takes off and unloads Cleo on Johnny.
While Somewhere is too elegant to be mumblecore, it shares that genre’s skirting of plot and dull, quotidian rhythms (Coppola has acknowledged that she resisted adding some sort of dramatic ‘event’ to force a crisis). This has a reverse effect I’m not sure is entirely intentional — with some searching, I was able to find resonance in the deconstruction of celebrity and the moneyed life of Hollywood. Coppola takes her privileged frame of reference on wealth and fame as a matter of course, which is also what allows her to drain that lifestyle of romance and excitement. She shows how a middling movie star’s life between pictures truly could be mundane, a depressing litany of promotion efforts, room service dinners, and meaningless sex. If this is an isolated problem of the wealthy, so be it — Coppola isn’t asking us to feel sorry for Johnny.
I think there are great films in Coppola yet, as evidenced by the wit of Lost In Translation and the lavish Marie Antoinette. But only The Virgin Suicides had teeth — it sank into female desire with an erotic and cruel touch, and remains one of the most memorable films about sexuality and repression (until Darren Aronofsky’s recent addition of Black Swan). While Somewhere lacks such bite, it has Coppola’s trademark sense of style. As far as visuals go, she is a focused if not always inspired director. The production design is consistent and evocative, sticking to a cool palette of washed blues, yellows, and browns that fit Harris Savides’ natural lighting and camerawork. There are also some strong standout moments, such as when Cleo goofs around with Johnny’s friend (Chris Pontius of Jackass), whose improvised teasing elicits shocked giggles from Cleo. However, such pleasures are rare, and the film clearly lacks warmth and spontaneity. The final scene, complete with musical crescendo, is meant to elicit some sort of cathartic emotion, but after so much non-climax, it feels forced. Johnny Marco may be going somewhere, but unfortunately we don’t get to take that journey with him.
