If you thought all teenagers were sullen creatures, filled with apathy, make sure you don’t make that same assumption if you come into contact with Hanna. You may not live to regret it!
16-year-old Saoirse Ronan (reunited with her Atonement director) is the titular heroine – a fierce, highly intelligent and combat-savvy teenager who has been raised from a baby by her father (Eric Bana) free from the outside world, in the snowy, desolate wilderness of Finland. Having been trained up to be the perfect assassin (complete with multi-lingual and survivalist skills), she embarks on a mission (initiated by Bana) to track down and kill the corrupt CIA operative (Cate Blancett) who was behind their original exile.
Upon escaping from the clutches of the CIA, she finds herself travelling through a number of countries and locations, bringing her into contact with an outside world she has never experienced before. This proves to be an alluring and mysterious place for teenager, and she battles to cope with her freedom, whilst avoiding capture from a band of mercenaries, as she makes her way to rendezvous with her father in Germany.
Hanna represents a real departure for director Joe Wright, who until now, has been associated with more serious and restrained dramas, like the aforementioned 2007 Ian McEwan adaptation and last year’s film version of the real-life exploits of a schizophrenic, homeless cello prodigy in The Soloist. Thankfully, he is more than adequate at hopping between different genres as the film successfully illustrates, and he handles the action with the same assurance he invests in the more intimate, character-based scenes. The film has a number of thrillingly-choreographed chase and fight sequences – all scored to a pulsating soundtrack by dance duo The Chemical Brothers. Wright is even able to bring a fresh and fascinating approach to how action is traditionally staged on the screen. Hanna’s escape from a seemingly impenetrable CIA holding facility is a fantastic example of this, where the distinctive set design and a bold use of lighting and disorientating camerawork really help to create a unique feel to the film. On the strength of all this, it wouldn’t be surprising if the makers of the Bond franchise weren’t knocking on the director’s door right now.
He also shows the same confidence in eliciting fine performances out of his cast. Ronan is fantastic as the sweet, yet deadly killing machine and has a real otherworldly presence about her. The fish-out-of-water escapades she finds herself in as she adjusts to what is an extremely strange and alien environment for her, are sometimes very humorous and ultimately, quite touching, particularly when she ends up hitching a ride with a couple of liberal, new-age-y English tourists (played by Jason Flemyng and Olivia Williams) and their two child – one of whom is a typical bratty teenage girl and similar age to Hanna, whom she manages to strike up a sadly short-lived bond with. Bana too is very strong here, and we see both his nurturing side and that killer instinct he has impressed upon his daughter which is very much evident during another superbly-staged fight, set in an underground car park, where the enemy seem to appear from out of nowhere. Blancett as the icy, remorseless spy operative gives another classy performance and he thoroughly unsympathetic and evil throughout.
Scratch beneath the surface here, and there isn’t really too much depth to the film (it certainly doesn’t have any of the emotional weight of Wright’s previous features) but if you’re looking for an action-packed, stylishly-shoot piece of escapism, you can’t really go wrong with Hanna.
[Rating:3.5/5]
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