Somewhere [2010]

A world famous actor stumbles through the course of a few days looking for meaning – when his daughter is dropped off.

The acting was solid – the tired and lonely quality of the performance was not lost on me. Stephen Dorff was great – that was fairly surprising to me – not that I can recall something that he was in. The directing was a lot of just let the camera sit and let’s watch – so it felt very lazy – because not much happens – Sofia Coppola was smart to use that technique but considering not much happens – I wish one style would have changed – but that’s not what the movie was. The two scenes with the twin pole dancers were shot in an uncomfortable way. It felt like a letter from Sofia to her father or something along those lines about how she felt isolated as he was famous. Ultimately, I felt like this movie fell short of its potential and abandoned any narrative structure for a considerable more style over substance - and it was a frustrating film.

If you want to watch this movie and you are sensitive to SPOILERS – please look away.

By the end of the film – I was frustrated with it. They portray the main character as needing a direction – and when he gets his daughter for an extended period you start to think “this is that missing direction he needs” – but it’s not. He drops her off for camp – apologizes – and you expect that he’s going to correct his direction and make his life about his daughter. Yet, at the end of the movie he checks out of the hotel – abandons his car in the middle of the road out in the middle of nowhere and walks away – and gives a smirk to the camera. Thusly, abandoning his daughter at camp – and honestly – I don’t get it. The smirk is what gets me – I get the “fuck the world” kind of rebel attitude – but it just felt like it was misdirected and made an odd twist to what was expected.