Hanna, Barbaric

Hanna

*** out of ****

Directed by: Joe Wright

Starring: Saoirse Ronan, Eric Bana, Cate Blanchett, Olivia Williams and Tom Hollander

Running time: 111 minutes

Director Joe Wright’s new film, a slick genre exercise called Hanna, is first and foremost, maddeningly stylish. He proved with 2007’s Atonement that he can pursue his own style, which includes space-heavy long takes, quick edits and close-ups in a manner that effectively tells a story. However, the aesthetics in his next outing, The Soloist, were flashy and egregious when they didn’t need to be.

Wright’s newest film, however, stresses this indulgent output of technique more appropriately. This may be due to the fact that it is about a young girl – the title character portrayed by Saoirse (pronounced “Seer-sha”) Ronan – who must utilize her own brusque strength and physical style to survive.

Hanna’s father, an ex-CIA agent named Erik (Eric Bana), has been training her as a physical force to be reckoned with for many years. Housed entirely away from humanity in the Finnish wilderness, she has grown up on meals cooked by firewood and falls asleep to a selection of Grimm's fairy tales.

The teenager can also recite phrases in a variety of languages with crackerjack speed. She has learned a slew of knowledge for how to behave when interacting with the outside world, but has never strayed from the deep forest.

At the press of a button (literally), Hanna tells Erik that she is ready to begin her mission. It involves tracking down Marissa Wiegler (Cate Blanchett), a former partner of her dad’s, and executing her. Heading out into the free world, her father gives her one instruction: “adapt or die.”

Well, it turns out that Marissa wants Hanna to be gotten rid of too, and sends off her own team to scout out the savage teenage assassin. After the antsy Chemical Brothers score is cued and a couple of CIA agents are efficiently slain by the gnarly protagonist, not much else happens. The film is essentially a simple cat-and-mouse chase stretched to nearly two hours.

Even when the story feels slacken, the proceedings are mesmerizing, mostly credited to Ronan’s commanding performance as the gritty title character.

Ronan, just a pip when she received an Oscar nomination for Atonement, has morphed into an astonishingly fiery performer with a bewitching, angular face and the assuredness of a young Jodie Foster.

With a role of frightening complexion, Ronan must display a nimbleness to commit grievous crimes while gaining the audience’s sympathy. Whatever reservations one might have to her cold calculation in earlier scenes dissipates when Hanna encounters and runs away with a young British family, befriending their mousy teenage daughter (played by Jessica Barden) and making her first friend in the process.

It’s a remarkable about-face as Hanna discovers the outside world and develops glimmers of humanity. Ronan is up for the task, as she slowly detaches from her ultra-violent physicality.

Unfortunately, it’s the adults who get the pithy shove here. Cate Blanchett and Eric Bana get too little to do with elementary character types. Blanchett doesn’t embody her villain as much as scowl and grit her bloody teeth menacingly.

Meanwhile, Bana does get to kick a bit of butt, as he fends off a barrage of baddies in an elaborate, crisp tracking shot. Wright trusts his performers to the extent that editing slices are not as important as body chops.

While the story is by-the-book – and given the numerous blatant allusions to Grimm’s fairy tales, it’s by more than a few – Ronan throws the book out and inhabits a deliciously intricate character, full of rage, anguish and strength. It’s a fiery tour de force in a film whose story could have used more steam.