An aging movie star wanders around an opulent, yet alienating hotel. Trapped in a prison of fame, drugs, and hangers-on, the actor suffers from the kind of existential angst that only exists in portentous art films, but finds salvation through his relationship with a young girl. That’s the basic plot of Somewhere, but back in 2003 Sophia Coppola called the movie Lost In Translation. It was a remarkable calling card that established her career and reinforced that she was a filmmaker of unique talent and vision.
Now it’s 7 years later and she’s made two more movies about the pain of wealth and privilege. The limitations of returning to that well started to show in Marie Antoinette and in Somewhere, it’s starting to look like Sophia’s running out of ideas only four movies into her career. That’s not to say that Somewhere is devoid of interest or that Coppola lacks talent. Not at all, in fact there are individual scenes and moments in the movie that rival everything that she’s made in their simplicity and haunting beauty. The problem is just that thematically there’s nothing in the movie that she hasn’t done before and self-plagiarism this early into a career is a bad sign.
Stephen Dorff plays an A-list movie star living in the Chateau Marmont, a famous Hollywood hotel that houses visiting movie stars and the sex n’ drugs parties that come along with the package (think The Eagles’ Hotel California). Dorff is so bored with his movie star life that he wanders through parties like a ghost and is prone to passing out with his head buried deep in a lovely lady’s lap. After sleepwalking through the press junket for his latest blockbuster stinker, Dorff’s 11-year-old daughter arrives. We never learn why the parents split, but it’s pretty clear that she’s become the adult in the relationship, preparing meals for her father and leering at him when he brings a groupie to breakfast. It seems like Dorff might find salvation in this brief moment of domestic bliss, but she leaves just as quickly as she arrives. This isn’t a movie about change, just about the protagonist realizing that he’s stuck in a hamster wheel. And just in case we don’t pick up on that, Coppola bookends the movie with the image of Dorff driving in circles around a racetrack and walking down a long lonely highway. Sophia shares both her father’s love of symbolism and his lack of subtlety.
Scarlett Johansson’s character in Lost In Translation was pretty nakedly based on Coppola playing hanger-on to her then director husband Spike Jonze and here the relationship between daughter and father is pretty clearly influenced by a childhood spent with Francis Ford Coppola. The story and themes of Somewhere aren’t without merit, they’re just embarrassingly similar to Lost In Translation. Stephen Dorff steps into Bill Murray’s role, which means the comedy is dialed down about 95% and is replaced by gratuitous shirtlessness. He’s actually quite good in the role, but without Murray’s deadpan comedic genius and decades’ worth of audience good will, it’s incredibly hard to care about the problems of such a spoiled character (maybe it really is difficult to be absurdly wealthy and have every woman in the world throw themselves at you, but I can’t really identify).
Elle Fanning is absolutely incredible as Dorff’s daughter and their relationship gives the movie a much-needed heart. Unfortunately, not much really happens between them and when Fanning finally has her long-delayed emotional meltdown nothing comes of it and the movie just stops. In fact, the biggest problem with the entire film is that nothing happens. Coppola just wanders through the proceedings in the listless daze of her protagonist, hoping we’ll find the lack of action incredibly deep and meaningful.
Even with all of the problems, Somewhere is not a total write off. As always, Coppola gets incredible work out of her cast and creates beautiful images that will stick in your mind long after the movie is over. The hauntingly vivid and resonant image of Dorff sitting alone in a special effects house with his face covered in plaster is one of the most intriguing cinematic moments of the year. Coppola has a handful of other scenes that work just as well and it’s clear that she is a strong director. However, as a writer she’s starting to show her limitations. Maybe it’s time to drop the writing half of her filmmaking hyphenate or go through the emotional growth that she denies her characters. Either way, she’s going to have to change if she wants to have a long career. You can only be a promising newcomer for so long.
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