Francis. This one’s for you. Not sure how many biographical elements have been put in the genetics of this screenplay, but the 120 seconds worth is telling about where Sofia Coppola might go with Somewhere – perhaps a Valentine’s card to her father the legendary director, and another clever way of tapping into the class and life of what common folks would find extraordinary, the privileged find ordinary. The small sample of the parade of distractions (cameos) embedded in the 2 minutes is pushing me to think that I’m less sure of this being a career rebirth for Stephen Dorff, but my thoughts of Elle Fanning getting some award mention attention remains intact — love the underwater tea for two part, and that kind of cuteness in a purely adult world can go a long way with critics. I imagine there might be a backlash from cinephiles in terms of the hotel setting, character traits such as a Caucasian person’s boredom and matching gender/age differences as with Lost in Translation, but her aesthetic and soundtrack are customary trademarks that haven’t diminished my expectations for the film. Focus have apparently earmarked a December release – look for this to be at Venice/TIFF.
Johnny Marco (Stephen Dorff) is a bad-boy A-List actor stumbling through a life of excess while living at Hollywood’s legendary Chateau Marmont Hotel. His days are a haze of drinks, girls, fast cars and fawning fans. Cocooned in this celebrity-induced artificial world, Johnny has lost all sense of his true self. Until, that is, his 11-year-old daughter Cleo (Elle Fanning) unexpectedly shows up and unwittingly begins to anchor him. Johnny’s fragile connection to real life slowly revives in her presence. So when the time comes for Cleo to leave, his sense of loss is palpable, but the gift of hope she has also brought him leads to a beautiful, poetic denouement.
