Such a frustrating disappointment

Memorable, crazy movie

When a movie has you begging for it to end not even half way through it's pure crap. We've all seen this movie and this characters millions of times, nothing new in it. Don't waste your time.

Exactly the movie you think it is, but not the movie you want it to be.

When i watched the trailer i thought the movie is going to be about the relationship of a father and his daughter but i was very wrong, The movie is about a man admitting he's depressed and in need for help.Our man here is Johnny Marco played by Stephen Dorff, is an actor who lives in a hotel away from his divorced wife and his daughter Cleo played by Ellen Fanning. The movie is in three parts each one adding to the character of who Johnny is or rather what Johnny is going through and feeling. The first part shows Johnny watching two strippers in his bedroom and falling asleep, he goes to parties that he clearly isn't enjoying, drinking, doing drugs and having sex all of that without the slightest hint of pleasure. All what seem to be the source of pleasure to people is an act of habit to him, he hooks up with so many beautiful women but it seems like he does it out of need rather than desire. We see how empty his inside is, how colorless is his fame, how uninterested he is in everything that is his life. All of that is obvious through Coppola's stunning directing we see Johnny in the middle of a big room, everything seems to be moving but him, people talk but he doesn't join in, the sounds are always distant and he is not participating in making them.The second part of the film we see him with his daughter Cleo who is spending time with him while her mother is away, their relationship is sweet, it's definitely not the best but they have their moments where they have peace in silence, we only see him active mentally with his daughter. He's not completely present though, he's still depressed but being with a loved one for some quality time is able to bring a very little piece of himself back to life. When they go to Italy together we see them watching Friends in the foreign language, and that shows how out of place they are, he is a stranger to his work and she is a stranger to this life though she seems to be coping with it better than her father. In another scene Johnny is presenting a show in Italian and suddenly women around him start to dance and he's awkwardly standing in the middle, again a stranger to his work. While Cleo laughs and smiles at him, that's where he smiles back opening more to the idea of enjoying things.The third part is where Cleo goes to camp and Johnny tries to tell her something about how he cares for her but it's blocked by the sound of helicopter behind him and he's not brave enough to repeat his feelings and he kind of blames his life for it. Then we see where he loses it, he has been so used to depression for so long that he forgot there's a life beyond that, a life that his daughter reminded him existed. And now for the first time we see him looking for it, calling a friend crying telling her there's nothing to do and struggling with expressing himself, we see Johnny rides to somewhere in despair sick of being depressed. That's where the movie ends showing the whole picture of Johnny Marco's experience. This is how Coppola works, she shows you a bit by bit of this painting that is beautiful but you don't know where it's going or how to feel about it exactly, but in the end you get the whole picture and you're stunned of how meaningful and beautiful it is and leaving you feel like you've been there the whole time seeing how it has been painted.

'Somewhere' directed by Sofia Coppola is a film about a Hollywood actor named Johnny Marco played by Stephen Dorff who leads a lonely existence in L.A. He is asked to keep his daughter Cleo (Elle Fanning) with him by his ex-wife while she goes away for some work and is asked to drop her off at the camp where she is supposed to spend her vacation. The time that Johnny spends with Cleo leads him to have certain self-realisations and also forces him to set his life priorities straight.'Lost in Translation' is the only other Sofia Coppola film that I have seen and I could see some similar themes at work in both films like alienation and loneliness, the emptiness beneath the shiny and glossy exterior surface of the life of a Hollywood actor or celebrity,etc. Like "Lost in Translation', 'Somewhere' is also a theme-centric film and is a character study instead of being heavy with plot elements. This film is also heavy with visual symbolism, but they are subtle. The first scene itself of Johnny driving a Ferrari round and round in circles going nowhere tells you everything you need to know about the character without any exposition or the use of dialogue. There are small symbolic elements sprinkled throughout the film involving make-up masks, phone messages, songs playing in the background,etc. which are extremely descriptive and they enrich the storyline. Coppola goes to great lengths to put us in Johnny's shoes and experience his loneliness. We get these long static shots and single take scenes where nothing much happens except Johnny sitting and smoking. We see him repeating the same pointless routine of experiencing casual sexual encounters with strangers, hiring pole dancers to watch them perform(although he dozes off during one of the performances which says something),etc. Then he has to attend photoshoots and answer random questions in press conferences and has to maintain this phony star image in the eyes of the media. So the arrival of Cleo, Johnny's daughter played by Elle Fanning is a breath of fresh air not only for Johnny, but also for the viewers. She spends time with him and goes with him to Italy due to some unavoidable circumstances. Slowly and gradually we see the change that Cleo brings about in Johnny's character, but it happens without any larger than life clichéd, melodramatic scenes. I think the message that Coppola wants to convey with this film is that you can feel enriched and fulfilled when you are with a loved one and with a person you care about and who cares about you no matter where you are, be it your home or be it abroad in completely unfamiliar locations. Loneliness will wreck you and eat you out gradually even if you have all the materialistic possessions that the world has to offer. I know that sounds a bit too preachy, but Coppola manages to succeed in conveying this message without being in the least bit didactic. The performances from both Dorff and Fanning are impressive. I completely bought them as a father and daughter duo. Dorff successfully sells the misery and the depression that his character goes through in the film. His acting is appropriately understated and reserved. Fanning beautifully portrays the naivety and the innocence of youth juxtaposed with the maturity that you would expect from a kid growing up with divorced parents. Sofia Coppola's style of filmmaking is very European. She uses silence and lack of action in a very artistic way. Her style of prolonged static takes and the quiet,deadpan nature of the film reminded me of Jim Jarmusch's 'Stranger than Paradise'. However the style of storytelling and the fact that the film is not too plot-centric will divide audiences. I have seen a lot of harshly negative reviews on IMDb message boards some of which border on being abusive. Even some critics whose opinions I respect have come up with negative reviews for the film which says a lot about the divisive nature of the film. If you want a film to have a lot of plot and where things keep on happening from one scene to the next, then 'Somewhere' is certainly not for you. But if you are a viewer who likes to go deep inside a film and look for symbolism and character arcs and subtlety and if you are willing to be patient which this film requires you to be, then 'Somewhere' will be a rewarding watch for you. 'Somewhere' works both as a study of the character of Johnny and the change that his character goes through, as well as an exploration on a broader level of the brutal truths of the life of a celebrity.

Written and Directed by Sofia Co Coppola, Somewhere is pretty much a hollowed out remake of Lost in Translation. With all its melancholy heart and that cold wintery isolation that you could empathise with from the main characters completely stripped out. Similar to Murray in LT, our main character Johnny (Stephen Dorff) is an actor living from hotel room to hotel room, whilst emotionally and consciously withdrawn from all the various awards ceremonies and press junkets he is made to do. Annoyingly from the gecko we are left completely indifferent to the main character, partly due to the face that his motives and desire throughout the whole film consistently remain ambiguous and dubious. When certain thinks do break the monotony of his existence, they still have no real implications on Jonny, for example in the opening sequence he breaks his hand, but as the film progresses it never has any affect on his life. Isn't the guy an actor, wouldn't a broken hand be bad for business? Then later in the film Jonny witnesses a car crash involving a sport car very similar to his own, but instead of contemplating the frivolity of material wealth in the face of death, he just carries on driving by as if he saw a plastic bag floating in the wind instead.The only smallest flicker of emotion we ever do see emanating from our main character is when his daughter Cleo (Elle Fanning) is dumped on his door step by his ex wife. Although the moments they share together are sweet and endearing, particularly in a scene where Jonny is watching his daughter ice skating through with his eyes filled with affection - ice skating is an activity Cleo plainly is really good at and highly enjoys doing. Ultimately I find the inclusion of the daughter rather strange, this is a guy who spends his time randomly sleeping with women, drinking profusely and gambling, yet the sudden emergence of his daughter has little effect on his destructive lifestyle. While on the daughters part even when she joined at the breakfast table by her father's most recent female conquest, Cleo doesn't even seem to mind that this woman out of nowhere has barged in and disrupted the little cocoon she has with her father. However what I do applaud, in a sea of impossibly fast actions scenes that rip past your eyes in seconds found in so many American films nowadays; I enjoyed Sofia use of long takes that focus on the in between, non sensationalised moments in life. In particular a scene in which Jonny has to wait as the prosthetic glue on his face has dried, even when all the make men has gone out of lunch. At first I felt it was on screen for beat too long, but then I realized in was a rather poignant way of showing the not so glamorous and often tedious side of acting – getting special effects make up put on. It's not all red carpets, adoring fans and fat pay cheques you know! I understand that the theme is showing the numbing effect of fame, that can leave you as an empty vessel just going with the motions, but it is the fact that nothing really is resolved in Somewhere or evoked with any real meaning and with the fact the main character never physically experiences implication on his life based on his actions, instead just takes everything in his stride with cool nonchalance. This leaves the film reminiscent of an empty shell being dragged in the wind, with no real direction or meaning to its existence. "Somewhere," won the Golden Lion at the 2010 Venice Film Festival, all I can say, I never knew that a national Italian pastime was watching paint dry.

I figured that 2 is a funny number to rate a film on IMDb. It ain't the worst thing ever however clearly not the best thing ever. But I don't think that all films should be rated 1 for being truly awful because at least they tried to make something that looks like they went a long way for it. At least that's what I thought about for most films. But again, that is obviously a matter of opinion HOWEVER in Sofia Coppola's 'Somewhere' it is the closest thing I could think of for hating a film which is a rare feeling for me. The laziness of making a film just because her father's got millions astounds me. If she didn't have money (and I mean NOTHING out of it) then the quality would've been the exact same thing.Not only that but I felt that it was painfully boring! My god, the sheer amount of pills I had to take to keep awake has become somewhat routine for me during that hour and a half of nothingness. The only thing I think this film is decent enough for my life is simply using it to GO TO SLEEP. Like play it just before sleepy-time and I would get the best sleep ever! Don't get me started on the characters (but I'm going to anyway). The character of Johnny Marco was dry, dull, boring and was just... nothing to the story. I understand that it was about a Hollywood star with no life (at least that's what I thought it was about) but nobody seemed to care! I felt nothing for the character, no sympathy, no heart-felt moments for him, nothing! The only character with energy was Chris Pontius's character which was great improvising by the way with Cleo as apparently he's good with kids in real life.But going back to my title - how did Sofia Coppola get a budget for making nothing!? Because her dad's super successful and famous. I really don't think that some Coppola's should be in the film-making industry, at least not for Sofia's in that way. Only Francis Ford-Coppola and his many years of realising that he's awesome for making The Godfather etc. Sofia went "I wanna make films" and we're going "Pfft! Sure you can!" (sarcastically). Don't get me wrong I quite liked 'Lost in Translation' as I thought it was sweet and pretty but again, typical Sofia with her dry narrative 'skills'.She had pretty much everything to make this film: Great actors, producers with cash - lots of it, locations, music choice. However he messed it all up with her unimaginative mind and writing on the script which might as well be scwiggly lines. No point whatsoever! A very empty film with a weird beginning, a boring middle and an unsatisfying ending. Either watch it for A: Cause you need to get to sleep, or B: Because you wanna slit your wrists with a blade cause you hate life but you just need that extra push to make you snap and finally do it.