Review of Somewhere (2010) by Shiira — 17 Feb 2011

"She can't be at the table," warns the croupier, and goes on to inform Johnny Marco(Stephen Dorff) that his daughter needs to "step back", but the officious-sounding admonition which the casino employee delivers is only for appearance's sake, just a pretense of regulations being upheld, since he knows, and the actor knows, the girl too, as well as the complicitous onlookers who surround the big movie star throwing dice, and not minding one bit, that the bet abettor is enforcing a modified version of the house rules.

Cleo(Ellie Fanning), who is only eleven-years-old, and by Las Vegas gaming standards, grossly underaged, shouldn't even be allowed to walk the floor, and yet, there she stands, without a shred of guilt or self-consciousness, taking her rightful place among the grown-ups, all because of who her father is: a celebrity, a somebody.

To the girls' credit, she takes a step behind the shooter, her father, without protestation, without a break in her grin, because she's nice. This simple act of tactfulness redeems Cleo, even the dad(if you believe the old adage that the apple doesn't fall far from the tree), therefore making his ennui with stardom, and her abandonment issues, problematic situations both that the moviegoer can sympathize with, despite the rarefied air they breathe.

Nobody really whines in "Somewhere", so don't hate them simply because of their economic status and skin color. Accused by some quarters of suffusing her frame with subject matter that conveys privilege and entitlement from an apologist's perspective, the filmmaker, undaunted and seemingly impervious to criticism, adheres herself to royalty once again, when she switches the period and venue from eighteenth century Versailles to twenty-first century Hollywood.

To paraphrase the Austria-born queen who lost her head, "Let them eat ice cream," because Johnny and his daughter would much rather gorge on gelatto, which they order from room service in a swanky Italian hotel, and not just one type of the sweet frozen dessert, but all four flavors, a display of minor gluttony that faintly recalls the scene in "Marie Antoinette", where the queen and her consorts pig out on an endless assortment of pastries(and shoes).

Although it seems innocent enough, Johnny gives his daughter a lesson in decadence; he teaches Cleo how to behave like a queen. As an adult, he needs to placate his appetite for more(fawning women, for starters), by exhibiting some self-control, at least while his daughter is visiting, which seems like an infrequent occurrence, at best.

Cleo, so far, so good, shows no outward signs of corruption yet, but that doesn't mean the unformed girl is incorruptible. The longer she remains exposed to her degenerative father's ways(he invites a lady friend into their hotel room), the better the chances of boorish behavior, so maybe next time, should they be in the Nevada desert, maybe Cleo won't be so gracious about stepping back from the craps table.

The fact that Marie Antoinette gambles during the film's birthday sequence, turns the Vegas scene into a bridge between the two movies, and sort of intimates that Cleo is halfway there to being a typical child of privilege.

(Back at the Chateau Marmont, when she asks the help to carry the pitcher of orange juice into the kitchen, is she exercising her authority as the daughter of a star, or is the container simply too heavy for her?) Set in the United States, the left coast, nevertheless, it's as if "Somewhere" never left France, since the filmmaker employs a European approach to the filmic velocity of its content.

The slowed-down approach, is, of course, highly ironic, considering the fast life that a Johnny Marco-like star leads. Like "Marie Antoinette", a film which depicted the monotony of court life all too convincingly, "Somewhere" is also rife with repetition, featuring countless shots of Johnny in some depressive form of solitary repose.

In the final scene, Johnny leaves his black Ferrari on the side of the road, and proceeds to travel by foot. The moviegoer sees his feet. Now it's a little bit easier to walk in his shoes; now he's relatable, unlike the French queen, whom the filmmaker supposedly identifies with, according to her critics.

These skeptics, however, overlook the fact that a Bow Wow Wow song like "I Want Candy" is proletarian(Jean-Phillipe Rameau's opera "Platee" is bourgeoisie), so in actuality, the new wave classic creates dissonance with the scene of debauchery that accompanies it.

The poor allows the rich to appropriate their music as long as they're well-taken care of, but when the queen breaks this pact, they turn up at her balcony to take the Gang of Four back. The filmmaker is like Cleo.

She's rich, but not a snob...yet.