Somewhere

I was disappointed by Sofia Coppola's Somewhere, but that didn't keep me from being captivated by it.

Somewhere is about a famous young actor experiencing alienation and ennui in the privileged Hollywood milieu. It's a mood piece, an extended portrayal of baffled isolation. What makes it so strong is the actor's polite passivity and slightly stunned confusion -- not confusion exactly but lack of emotional or intellectual or social clarity.

The mood is lifted, temporarily, by an extended visit with his daughter, played beautifully by Elle Fanning. Her subtle performance is riveting, and I watched her fascinated, wanting to no more about her. Somewhere is an exercise in understatement. Nothing much happens between the father and daughter, but their simple hanging out, their easy enjoyment of each others company is the light in the fathers privileged and spoiled fog. The ending bothered me a lot; it was contrived and cliched -- the father walking off into the distance after experiencing some sort of inner epiphany.

I guess I wanted a little more from Somewhere. It is similar in some way to Lost in Translation, which killed me, but lacks some sort of spark or crackle or tension. It felt like a very well executed short story, and perhaps I wanted more of a novel.

One incredible scene: the father (played by Stephen Dorff), is being fitted for a mold for special effects in some movie. He has to sit there with his face covered in plaster. Nothing but two globby holes for his nostrils. At one point the makeup people leave the room and he is sitting there for an interminable length of time. Breathing. Coppola took her time with this shot, luxuriating in it, and it was one of the most tense, painful, brilliantly claustrophobic moments I've ever experienced.