Saoirse Ronan, the young actress who plays the title role in Hanna, has pale skin and paler eyebrows that are practically invisible when glimpsed from a distance. The effect is that of a forehead disappearing into a pair of pale-blue eyes — like a nearly complete version of a human simulacrum being stitched up in a Frankensteinian factory. (Only as the film nears its end and we learn who Hanna really is do we realise how astutely this aspect of the actress has been employed.)
Even her talents are ridiculously inhuman. Not so much raised as trained by her father (Eric Bana) — in the middle of a pristine nowhere that the film locates as “60 miles below the Arctic Circle” — Hanna is a polyglot, a storehouse of bookish knowledge (her father reads to her daily from an encyclopaedia), and a natural-born killer capable of assuming various identities, each with elaborate backgrounds embroidered with non-existent friends and pet dogs named Trudy.
Just as we begin to wonder if Hanna is indeed as inhuman as her spectral appearance suggests, she evinces those most humanlike of traits, curiosity and wonder. One night, her father reads out to her about the songs of blue whales that can be heard from miles away, and she — inquisitive Miranda to his instructive Prospero — asks dreamily what music is, what it feels like. In response, her father reads out a dull definition from the book in his hands, but it's clear that this little girl-assassin has outgrown her island of seclusion.
The movie moves to Morocco, baked and browned by a sun unknown to Hanna from her polar outpost, and the director, Joe Wright, stages a terrific scene where Hanna is besieged by the mundane miracles of modern living — a ceiling fan whirrs ominously, fluorescent lights begin to flicker as if by magic (though actually by a switch), an electric kettle underscores these odd occurrences with a high-pitched hum, and when the terrified girl backs into the bathroom the shower sends forth furious drops of water to soak her from top to toe.
At this point, Hanna is poised as a gender-bending variation on the archetypal story of Tarzan and Mowgli and Truffaut's L'enfant Sauvage in the city — it appears that we will be witnessing the humanising of Hanna. But that angle will not account for the arts her father so arduously instilled in her, so the film takes a detour into Bourne territory, plunging us into the mystery of why Hanna is the way she is.
And there's a third dimension to the proceedings, one which is hinted at through a book of fairy tales, the only semblance of a childhood in Hanna's Arctic abode — but it's not the happily-ever-after that interests Wright. The climactic showdown between Hanna and this film's wicked witch (Cate Blanchett, as a shadowy agent out to destroy Hanna and her father) unfolds in a Brothers Grimm theme park, with Hanna literally walking into the wide-open jaws of the Big Bad Wolf.
This mix of moods doesn't always mesh. The action sequences aren't bad, but it's the silent moments with Hanna that stay in mind — when she mistakes a hotel swimming pool for an oasis and cups her hands and scoops up water only to be surprised by a swimmer who breaches the surface like a mermaid, or when she accompanies a quintessential family (mother, father, two kids, a boy and a girl) on their road trip, her flaxen hair flying against a ripe-yellow sun. Strip the film of its secret and you have a quietly exhilarating mood piece about a girl stepping out of her oyster and finally hearing the music.
Hanna
Genre: Action-Thriller
Director: Joe Wright
Cast: Saoirse Ronan, Cate Blanchett, Eric Bana
Storyline: A girl-assassin attempts to uncover her secret
Bottomline: Works better as a mood piece than the thriller it wants to be
Even her talents are ridiculously inhuman. Not so much raised as trained by her father (Eric Bana) — in the middle of a pristine nowhere that the film locates as “60 miles below the Arctic Circle” — Hanna is a polyglot, a storehouse of bookish knowledge (her father reads to her daily from an encyclopaedia), and a natural-born killer capable of assuming various identities, each with elaborate backgrounds embroidered with non-existent friends and pet dogs named Trudy.
The movie moves to Morocco, baked and browned by a sun unknown to Hanna from her polar outpost, and the director, Joe Wright, stages a terrific scene where Hanna is besieged by the mundane miracles of modern living — a ceiling fan whirrs ominously, fluorescent lights begin to flicker as if by magic (though actually by a switch), an electric kettle underscores these odd occurrences with a high-pitched hum, and when the terrified girl backs into the bathroom the shower sends forth furious drops of water to soak her from top to toe.
At this point, Hanna is poised as a gender-bending variation on the archetypal story of Tarzan and Mowgli and Truffaut's L'enfant Sauvage in the city — it appears that we will be witnessing the humanising of Hanna. But that angle will not account for the arts her father so arduously instilled in her, so the film takes a detour into Bourne territory, plunging us into the mystery of why Hanna is the way she is.
And there's a third dimension to the proceedings, one which is hinted at through a book of fairy tales, the only semblance of a childhood in Hanna's Arctic abode — but it's not the happily-ever-after that interests Wright. The climactic showdown between Hanna and this film's wicked witch (Cate Blanchett, as a shadowy agent out to destroy Hanna and her father) unfolds in a Brothers Grimm theme park, with Hanna literally walking into the wide-open jaws of the Big Bad Wolf.
This mix of moods doesn't always mesh. The action sequences aren't bad, but it's the silent moments with Hanna that stay in mind — when she mistakes a hotel swimming pool for an oasis and cups her hands and scoops up water only to be surprised by a swimmer who breaches the surface like a mermaid, or when she accompanies a quintessential family (mother, father, two kids, a boy and a girl) on their road trip, her flaxen hair flying against a ripe-yellow sun. Strip the film of its secret and you have a quietly exhilarating mood piece about a girl stepping out of her oyster and finally hearing the music.
Hanna
Genre: Action-Thriller
Director: Joe Wright
Cast: Saoirse Ronan, Cate Blanchett, Eric Bana
Storyline: A girl-assassin attempts to uncover her secret
Bottomline: Works better as a mood piece than the thriller it wants to be