Elle Fanning, Stephen Dorff, Somewhere
Sofia Coppola’s psychological family drama Somewhere hasn’t been greeted by what one would call stellar reviews. Screened at the 2010 Venice Film Festival a couple of days ago, Somewhere chronicles the relationship between a pampered movie star (Stephen Dorff) and his pre-teen daughter (Elle Fanning).
Written and directed by Coppola, among whose previous directorial credits are Lost in Translation and Marie Antoinette, Somewhere also features Benicio del Toro, Michelle Monaghan, Laura Ramsey, and Robert Schwartzman.
Weirdly, the movie looks like an acidly satirical comedy about LA celebrity but with all the acidly satirical comedy removed, so that all that is left is a skeleton outline, a series of scenes and locations – hotel rooms, lobbies, swimming pools, luxury automobile interiors – in which essentially gentle, forgiving dialogue takes place.
Peter Bradshaw in The Guardian.
After her foray into historical costumers with "Marie Antoinette," Sofia Coppola makes a happy return to "Lost in Translation" territory in the cutback charmer "Somewhere," which illuminates the emptiness of a movie star’s life in Los Angeles through close observation and gentle irony.
Deborah Young in The Hollywood Reporter.
A cloying sense of déjà vu radiates from ‘Somewhere’, Sofia Coppola’s long-gestating follow-up to her divisive postmodern historical biopic ‘Marie Antoinette’ (2006). That’s not to dismiss the movie as a failure, it just forces viewers to make a judgement call as to whether her ongoing concerns regarding the alienation suffered by the pampered, beautiful elite (a world she obviously knows very well) coalesce into a satisfying body of work or whether she’s simply making variations on the same movie. So lets chalk this one up as existing in that peculiar space between ‘La Dolce Vita’ and ‘Entourage’.
David Jenkins in Time Out London.
On the evidence provided in “Somewhere,” the room to book at the Chateau Marmont is 59, which comes with blond pole-dancing twins. Then again, maybe you have to be a rich, good-looking movie star to merit such treatment, and the focus on undeserved privilege is one of the few points of real interest in Sofia Coppola’s first feature since “Marie Antoinette.” This junior league Antonioniesque study of dislocation and aimlessness is attractive but parched in the manner of its dominant Los Angeles setting, and it’s a toss-up as to whether the film is about vacuity or is simply vacuous itself.
Todd McCarthy at indieWIRE.
Photo: Focus Features
The first two comments are ridiculous. I doubt the writer is hating on female directors. In fact he was only quoting what other reviewers had said. I hadn’t heard anything about this film, but rented it because in the past I have loved Ms. Coppola’s films ( virgin suicides, lost in translation). And I’m sorry, but it’s total crap. I’m all for bizarre, off the wall films. This film is neither bizarre or off the wall. There’s no plot. There’s no imagery. There’s no beauty, no humor. It is just plain boring. No, I dont want to stare at Stephen Dorff’s white plastered covered head for twenty minutes. I’ve currently watched the first 45 minutes and I’m about to turn it off!
I believe Sophia Coppola is riding on her name longer than Johnny Marco has been riding in his sports car – and according to the movie, that’s a long time. I’m not saying she isn’t accomplished in her own right, but her attributes and movies are so overrated, I can’t help but wonder if her famous surname doesn’t carry substantial weight among the elite circle of film makers, critics, and judges.
As in Lost in Translation, the focus on this film is a bored actor, only this one is younger and his bonding companion is his 11-year old daughter rather than a young, equally bored wife of a cameraman. Alienation and isolation are engaging themes, but the problem is that in Somewhere, the audience can grow just as bored as the main character. You get the impression that Johnny should be going somewhere, but you don’t know where. In the end, one can hope he is walking toward something rather than away from something, but by this point, the film took far too long to get nowhere.
OMG When a rep from the movie theatre is standing at the exit counting the number of people who leave early is not a good sign. Really- have we come to this as a society where starring at a car going around a track, girls dancing on a pole and unimaginative sex scenes for longer than way necessary is supposed to entertain we sooooo need to evaluate what makes a movie a classic.
This movie was endless full of empty space and vacant. I wish I had not spent the time or money. Just awful and boring waiting endlessly for something, anything to happen
Thank goodness – I thought I must have missed something, having seen the 4 star reviews attached to this film. Basically, this is the most boring film I have ever watched, and so-o-o predictable. My companion agreed we should have left after seeing the sports car go round and round the track at the start, because that set the tone of the rest of the film – I kept closing my eyes for minutes and when I opened them again, nothing had happened – still the same scene, same staring face. And the pole dancers went on and on and then they came back and did it again. OMG.
We left when he was crying down the phone and assume his daughter saved him. Very original – not. And I loved Lost in Translation.
Like Frances I too have just watched a screener for this film and I also felt I had been robbed of 2 hrs! The film left me speechless…one hour and sixteen minutes into the film Fanning cries and I thought well here comes some drama….wrong. Nothing happens in this film, quite unbelievable, how does she get finance for such an empty pointless film? Her family name perhaps?
While it may be true that Michelangelo Antonioni garnered the laurels of cinema genius by making films composed of long shots of nothing in particular happening to characters wandering through a haze of bourgeois ennui, the fact is his films were BEAUTIFUL to look at. Nearly every shot in L’aaventura or Red Desert takes your breath away, and feels loaded with layers of meaning that the viewer ponders for weeks. What angers me more than the vacuousness of “Somewhere” is that it is so thoroughly ugly to look at. Every shot seems to leave a bit of a stench, whether its that it doesn’t match up with any other shot in the scene, is clouded by a low-contrast haze or is simply the most banal composition imaginable. Perhaps Ms. Coppola’s intention was to languish in that banality, but honestly, isn’t there enough of that in the world?
Wow. Just saw a screener. Can I please have the last two hours back. Somewhere is a self-indulgent, pointless, vapid, listless, reduntant, and just plain awful film.
Appreciated Lost in Translation. Sofia took ten steps back with this one.
doesn’t she know the word “cut?” must every scene be, or feel like, ten minutes long? does she have to finish an entire song in every scene? with or without twin strippers?
i for one, hated lost in translation — felt i was being manipulated, and without her father’s influence, no one would have ever seen it (much less get the film shot)
this film was tedious, endless, pointless, and, simple just “ended” with no resolution, thank god i did not have to pay to see it, or i would have written a less-than-stellar review.
DW
I saw the film the other day at a screening and I have to say that the film is shockingly horrible. Not only is it vapid beyond belief, it’s also one of the more boring films I’ve ever seen. Nothing happens — I mean NOTHING happens. Sofia Coppola seems obsessed with saying how shallow being a rich star is and yet, at the same time, seems endlessly enraptured by it. I was sort of blown away by how utterly self indulgent the film was.
Hey guys – just wanted to join in on the intelligent debate. I saw the film last night and thought it was worth mentioning that aside from the thoughts of women hating men, gushing reviews and agenda filled buddies…
… This film is absolutely terrible.
I didn’t collate any reviews or come to it with any agenda – I just watched it. Craziness.
@ALeander
The reviews are not less than stellar. You seem to go out of your way to pick on Sophia. Maybe you are one of those men that are jealous of female directors.
Oh and look, Sophia Coppola won The Golden Lion for best film at Venice. That is the best kind of revenge.
http://www.reuters.com/article/idUSTRE68A17D20100911?type=entertainmentNews
James, Whether you find them “ridiculous” or not, overall reviews for “Somewhere” have been “less than stellar.” There’s nothing misleading about that statement. That doesn’t mean “Somewhere” doesn’t have its fans. *Everything* has its fans. Ask Adam Sandler.
Also, “less than stellar” doesn’t mean the movie was trashed. Else, I’d have said so. By “less than stellar” I meant to say less than widespread, across-the-board, enthusiastic acclaim. (That includes non-English-language articles.)
Bill, I’m neither your “buddy” nor do I have “an agenda.” Perhaps you do, but that’s not my issue. Whether Sofia Coppola makes a successful movie or a total flop will not stop the world from turning or the polar ice caps from melting away. In other words: I don’t care if Coppola’s movies are marvelous or miserable.
The reviews quoted in this article are from well-known and well-respected reviewers. That’s why they’re here.
Anne Thompson’s remarks weren’t included because I felt her article was more a commentary on Coppola and a lengthy description of the film than an actual, in-depth review. Instead, I opted to use a snippet from Todd McCarthy’s piece because he was much more to the point.
You have much of an agenda, buddy? Somehow you left out Anne Thompson’s gushing report also in IndieWire, The glowing review from Variety and the over the top review from In Contention.
It’s obvious that Sofia brings out the jealousy in folks but try not to be so obvious. It’s true. Sofia has the life most people would love to have, but she’s still a great filmmaker. And you write an jaundiced blog on-line.
This is such a ridiculous article. You only sample of 4 reviews, 3 of which are negative, and then say that it was met with “less-than-stellar reviews”? How about you seek out ALL of the published reviews. Like, say, the extremely positive one from VARIETY or the raves from INC CONTENTION and EMPIRE. Even in a small way, you could be classified as a reporter and even if you weren’t, you should still aspire to write fairly and truthfully. This article is misleading.