Review of Somewhere (2010) by Nathan M — 14 Jan 2012

'Somewhere' is a great film with fantastic performances from both Stephen Dorff and Elle Fanning. I bet you aren't used to seeing 'fantastic performance' and 'Stephen Dorff' in the same sentence, are you? Well, rest assured, it's not a typo. In this film, he proves that he is indeed a fine actor, perhaps one who has been choosing poor films for far too long.

The sad truth about 'Somewhere' is that many people will find it slow and boring, misunderstanding much of the film's meaning.

The first example of this would be the opening sequence of a car racing around a track repeatedly, for about two minutes or so, before finally coming to a stop, the driver getting out of the car and standing there. This shot speaks volumes about the lead character, Johnny Marco (Stephen Dorff), a man who is truly lost and oft times has no idea what his path is in life.

Johnny is the kind of man who has a pair of blonde twins come to his room every night to dance on stripper poles. He stays in an amazing hotel room -- in fact, Bono once stayed in the very room he now inhabits -- and can drink beer by the pool side everyday. He's been with a bevy of beautiful women, as is evidenced by the amount of females who ask him why he's never called, and many more still come after him. At parties, he gets recognised and asked for acting advice. For most people, this life would be great.

We see very early on that Johnny, however, lives a very sad and pathetic existence. He falls asleep while the twins dance for him. He'll go from party to party, from beer to beer, and from woman to woman without gaining any enjoyment, and it's easy to sense a great emptiness within him.

When his daughter, Cleo (Elle Fanning), shows up, at first nothing changes. He takes her to her skating classes and can barely concentrate enough to watch her, and he often seems paranoid that someone is following them. Johnny takes Cleo home at the end of the night, and he goes back to his miserable existence.

One of the scenes that occurs after Cleo leaves involves Johnny sitting in a makeup chair, receiving prosthetic makeup for a film. There is a long shot of him sitting in the chair with white goop on his face, unable to open his eyes or mouth for what is stated to be almost an hour. During this shot, though nothing is said, and Johnny doesn't move, the meaning should be clear: without Cleo in his life, Johnny can barely breathe. He is stifled, he's numb, and he's useless to do anything.

When Cleo comes into his life again, it's for a much longer period of time. Cleo's mom tells Johnny that she won't be around for awhile, so he takes care of her, eventually taking his daughter to Italy where they bond over Italian re-runs of the sitcom 'Friends' and eat every flavour of gelato off the room service menu after experiencing a bout of jetlag.

It's during this time frame where we see a spark inside of Johnny -- there is still some life left, like a void has finally been filled by the presence of Cleo.

It's only when Johnny and Cleo are travelling on the road together that we realise how shaky Cleo's life has been, too.

After the two part, with Cleo going off to summer camp, we see Johnny's devolution to his old ways. He goes from place to place, from beer to beer, with absolutely no emotion, until he eventually breaks down over the phone to his ex-wife.

The final scene is a shot of Johnny driving his car -- through the city, on the freeway -- for a few minutes. Finally, he drives down a country road, stops the car, and he gets out. As opposed to the beginning of the film, where he stood there and we knew how lost he was, he begins to walk with a small, content smile on his face.

He's finally found his path.