Sofia Coppola’s fourth feature finds her back on home soil in a tale of paternal love and redemption set around the social hub of the Hollywood elite.
Stephen Dorff (back from bit-part wilderness to fully-fledged leading man status) stars as a single, pampered Hollywood superstar named Johnny Marco and when we meet the hard-partying actor, he appears to be at a crossroads of sorts. Incapacitated by a broken arm (gained from a night on the tiles) he’s bored, tired-looking and going through the motions of living that wild Hollywood lifestyle – a world forever filled with booze, hotel bed-hopping and a level of nonchalance chain-smoking which would make Don Draper green with envy.
He’s forced to clean up his act and reassess the vacuous lifestyle he leads when his 11 year-old daughter Cleo (Elle Fanning), the product of a past relationship, turns up unexpectedly one day and ends up as a semi-permanent hotel guest.
Hotel guest, you ask? Apart from a humorous jaunt to Italy mid-way through the film (where Marco picks up a trophy on a crazy song-and-dance TV awards show), the majority of the action is set around the famed Chateau Marmont hotel. It’s a place where Marco appears to be a permanent resident, and it’s also a real-life location which has a long history in Hollywood folklore. Situated on the legendary Sunset Boulevard, it was the setting for John Belushi’s untimely death back in the early eighties, and through time, has been a place where many of Marco’s real-life counterparts have called home for long periods, enjoyed an equally hedonistic lifestyle. Through the years the hotel has often balanced the glitz and glamour with the less-salubrious side to fame, and it’s this parallel which Coppola manages to capture really well here.
In fact, the film almost could play as a LA companion piece to Lost in Translation. Marco’s lonely existence mirror’s that of Bill Murray’s character, and much like the filming of the Suntory Whisky commercial in ‘Translation’, we’re again treated here to those revealing little scenes and moments which offer an insight into the true nature of the industry behind all the red-carpets and flashing lights. This is perhaps best exemplified in one nice-judged scene in a make-up effects studio, where Dorff (having had his head completely covered in plaster) is then left alone for seemingly hours while the cast dries. The camera is static on him, and all we can hear is his strained breathing through two small holes in the mask. Scenes like this slowly play out and are given time to breathe, helping to imbue the whole film with a very laidback, free-wheeling 70’s cinema vibe. Marco’s daughter doesn’t even become the focus of the film until a good 30-40 minutes in!
The lack of dramatic tension and any real story development may annoy some, (plotting has never been one of Coppola’s strong points) but those who were comfortable with Lost in Translation’s languid pace will thoroughly enjoy what’s on offer here. Dorff has never been better, and although it could be argued that the role of a Hollywood party animal may not be much of a stretch for the actor, it’s a low-key and nuanced performance, particularly during the scenes with his screen daughter.
Fanning too is excellent, and is completely free from any of those Hollywood-imposed precocious child quirks. She’s incredibly charming and naturalistic, and this is very much evident during a touching father-daughter bonding moment early on in the film, where Marco watches his daughter ice-skate. It’s a scene which could so easily have descended into mawkishness and sentimentality in the hands of a lesser director, but Coppola underplays it, removing any artifice and leaving the viewer to interpret the character’s feelings on display in an unforced and more organic way. The film is also refreshingly free of any bad melodramatic confrontational moments between the two leads and Fanning’s brief emotional issues towards the end of the film feel entirely justified and never over-egged.
While the ending may smack a little of Hollywood wish fulfilment, this is a well-directed and thoughtful piece which, after her much-derided 2006 Cannes entry Marie Antoinette, reaffirms that Coppola is more than capable of stepping out from under her daddy’s shadow to bring her own unique and assured cinematic voice to the screen.
