Ryan McNeil
“I just missed your heart”
Seldom have the first words spoken in a film been more apropos. In this case, the character is talking to game they have hunted, but what I didn’t realize was the way that this line would prophesise the emotional resonance – or lack thereof – that was about to come.
Not that it wouldn’t try to hit me in the heart mind you…as it happened, it came damned close. And it even gave me a lot of thrills to soak up along the way.
Hanna (Saoirse Ronan) is a sixteen year old girl being raised to be a well-adapted survivor by a man named Erik (Eric Bana). They live in seclusion someplace wintry, and all we really know about them is that Hanna is training for something – our only clue being her creedo of “Adapt or Die”. When she finally convinces Erik that she is “ready”, he digs up a transponder and tells her that by flipping a switch, the hunt for her will begin. Sure enough, our restless heroine turns the device on, sending Erik on the lam and sending American forces Hanna’s way.
The operatives dispatched to retrieve Hanna are under the command of Marissa Wiegler (Cate Blanchett). We’re not entirely sure why she wants Hanna or Erik, but we do see that she tried to kill them both many years prior. With a plan in mind, Hanna surrenders (somewhat) quietly and gets taken into custody and held at an undisclosed location.
After seeing through a Wiegler bluff, Hanna makes a daring move and is able to flee the holding facility. But just how well will this young warrior do in a society that is completely foreign to her sheltered sensibilities? How well can this hunter last, when she is the one being hunted?
The beauty of a film like HANNA is that there’s no confusion over what the film is trying to be: It’s a chase film. Knowing that, the only elements the film need concern itself with are stakes and execution. Joe Wright has stepped well outside of his comfort zone with this film, and created a cat-and-mouse game that executes beautifully. As we watch how Hanna is trained, we quickly understand what sort of a weapon Erik has moulded her into. Likewise, the touches to the sorts of things she has been denied in her upbringing – music, real nurture – tip us off to what will throw her for a loop once she is exposed to civilization.
With these details in mind, HANNA never betrays itself. When the chase is on, we are thrilled to watch a teenaged girl take a room apart or elude capture in ways usually displayed by characters like Jason Bourne. Likewise, Saoirse Ronan never undersells the sensory overload of adapting to the real world, nor the timidness she would have instilled into her when trying to deal with everyday people in everyday situations.
Where HANNA doesn’t commit is with the stakes. Hanna’s run from Marissa never seems to come with any real peril. The secret that Erik knows about is only glossed over, and Marissa seems rather intent on keeping Hanna alive (why else would she have hanna interrogated rather than executed?). Once Hanna hits the road, the slimy stooges Marissa sends after her seem to be both inept and disinterested. Considering how far she has to go to rendez-vous with her father, hanna spends very little time in this film in any real danger.
So while the film seems to lack a sense of danger and left me emotionally cold, it is technically proficient. Speaking of that proficiency, one dteail that gives the film an extra bit of kick is the score provided by The Chemical Brothers. Along with intertwining itself into what we are seeing play out before us, it finds ways of defining characters in ways that the script leaves undefined – especially Isaacs the mercenary who gets his very own theme song to whistle. The score gives the film a unique heartbeat, and deserves a spot on the same playlist as daft Punk’s score to TRON LEGACY and Trent Reznor’s score to THE SOCIAL NETWORK.
As middle-of-the-road as I know this review sounds, I quite enjoyed my time spent watching Hanna make a run for it. It’s the sort of movie I think I will enjoy more upon further viewings when I get to examine the pieces a bit closer instead of trying to put the puzzle together. It’s a film of it’s time – well representing this moment of flux between the dregs of winter and sensory-overload of summer.
And it is one heck of a chase…even if it does just miss my heart.