Anyone who saw (and liked) "Lost in Translation" will easily recognize the light-handed direction of Sofia Coppola (long silences, limited- perspective camera work, minimalistic and thoughtful dialogue)in this subtle redemption story. It is a slow movie (I kept waiting for something, anything to happen), but like a subtle seasoning with cayenne pepper, the beauty hit me in the after taste. Stephen Dorff's turn as a bored stimulation-junkie Hollywood actor was rich. He is constantly looking for his next fix (but not in a "leaving Las Vegas" way) He is restless and that restlessness finds momentary reprieve in a bottle, in a pain killer, in a video game, in a meaningless sexual encounter. In the space of a few minutes at a party in his own hotel room, he washes down a pain killer with scotch, lights a cigarette and beds a woman he just met. In the middle of that encounter, he falls asleep. This quick sequence is a perfect metaphor for his life. In between stimulating encounters, he spends a great deal of time on his hotel balcony looking for "what's next." Unlike similar characters in other movies, he is not in danger of dying from his overindulgence, he is rather in danger of dying from boredom.
Redemption will come for Dorff's Johnny Marco not as the result of a tragic heart-breaking event, but rather when he is forced, over the course of a couple of weeks, to establish a relationship with his precocious 11 year-old daughter, Chloe - played charmingly by Dakota Fanning's kid sister, Elle. I don't want to say more about what transpires in this relationship, but I will say that Sofia Coppola was wise not to depict the typical negligent father/angry daughter relationship one might expect in this movie. The two seem to have essentially a good relationship from the beginning, making for a much more subtle transformation throughout.
Without saying so much as to spoil the movie for anyone who might reed this, I just want to say that the first and last sequences of the movie, both involving Johhny's Ferrari, make beautiful metaphorical bookends for the story. This is the kind of movie that Sundance audiences eat up and Sofia Coppola again shows why she is a darling of film festivals.
Redemption will come for Dorff's Johnny Marco not as the result of a tragic heart-breaking event, but rather when he is forced, over the course of a couple of weeks, to establish a relationship with his precocious 11 year-old daughter, Chloe - played charmingly by Dakota Fanning's kid sister, Elle. I don't want to say more about what transpires in this relationship, but I will say that Sofia Coppola was wise not to depict the typical negligent father/angry daughter relationship one might expect in this movie. The two seem to have essentially a good relationship from the beginning, making for a much more subtle transformation throughout.
Without saying so much as to spoil the movie for anyone who might reed this, I just want to say that the first and last sequences of the movie, both involving Johhny's Ferrari, make beautiful metaphorical bookends for the story. This is the kind of movie that Sundance audiences eat up and Sofia Coppola again shows why she is a darling of film festivals.