Image from BeyondHollywood.com
Saoirse Ronan plays a 16 year old raised by her father (Eric Bana) to defend herself against those who would do her harm, which turns out to be quite a lot of people. She can kill and gut an elk, she can engage in hand-to-hand combat, and she can fire a weapon. Sort of leaves no room for toys and television, but her dad has good reason to fear for her safety – he’s actually a former CIA officer who’s gone rogue, missing from the world for a long time.
The time finally comes, though, when Hanna feels she is ready to deal with the world. Father Erik shows her a transmitter he’s kept hidden away all this time; if she truly believes she is ready, he tells her, she need only to flip the switch, and the CIA will come after her. He and Hanna make plans to meet up in Berlin, and off we go with the thrust of the plot.
Hanna isn’t ordinary, her odd upbringing notwithstanding. She has amazing strength and reflexes and is a tremendously quick learner (her dad teaches her from old encyclopedias). Sure enough, she flips that switch, and sure enough, the CIA is quickly on the scene, thinking that although it’s lost its primary target (Erik), they at least have his scared, vulnerable daughter. Oh, how they wrong they are.
Hanna must navigate her way from detention by the authorities to her scheduled rendezvous with her father in Berlin, which as you all know is quite a distance from the North Pole. Mostly she walks, but she does manage to ingratiate herself into a traveling family for a short time, becoming friends with the daughter, played by Jessica Barden. Hanna’s able to use the family to get her into Europe, at least, all the while being pursued by German assassins at the behest of Erik’s longtime CIA handler, Marissa (Cate Blanchett).
I think that any movie in which female characters are shown to be strong and resourceful – and that these qualities are depicted as positive, not negative – is one to be lauded. Hanna and Marissa are well matched; each is capable of kicking butt and declining to take names, each is personable but ruthless and single minded. They’re not easy women to defeat.
The movie is tightly plotted (written by Seth Lochhead, his first feature), doling out pieces of information about Hanna’s past as if they were the remaining rations on a deserted island, and although there is plenty of action – and some terrific choreography – none of it distracts from the plot itself. Sometimes, a lesser film will lean heavily on those action pieces as a bit of sleight of hand, all to prevent the viewer from putting two and two together. Here, it’s more like the square root of eight plus pi. I overstate it, but you get the drift. Not everything means something, and some things mean everything.
The film is also quickly paced and expertly shot (by Alwin Kuchler) – again, without making things into such a blur that a fist and a blunt instrument blend into interchangeable weapons. Most of the fight scenes look as if they are actually taking place, which is probably true; the film never has a CGI feel to it, although it wouldn’t surprise me if some of those stunts just plain had to be technically created.
Hanna is a terrific thriller that does not depend heavily on visual effects to engage the viewer, instead merely using them to supplement a well-written plot with no gaping holes. It’s electric mayhem, to borrow from The Muppets, with dual towering performances by Ronan and Blanchett, the former making up for her earlier work in Atonement (directed by Joe Wright, who helmed Hanna). Ronan in Atonement was annoying, wooden, and obnoxious; Ronan in Hanna has grown up, steely, resolved, and deep. She’s a real pleasure to watch here, and she carries the film.
Hanna: ***1/2
