Young yet Hanna-tastic

Hanna (2011)
Certified: 16
Duration: 111 minutes
Directed by: Joe Wright
Starring: Saoirse Ronan, Cate Blanchett, Eric Bana, Jessica Barden, Tom Hollander, Olivia Williams, Jason Flemyng
KRS release

Hanna is a fast-driving thriller that melds popcorn entertainment with art-house type of fare in a very successful manner.

Joe Wright has taken on elements that usually clutter the summer box office explosion movies and melded them into something that is entirely different, driven and very much embodied in Saoirse Ronan’s wide-eyed performance as Hanna.

16-year-old Hanna (Saoirse Ronan) has not led a normal life. With her father Erik (Eric Bana) she has lived a survivalist lifestyle where she has been trained to survive, hunt, defend herself and kill. She is highly educated and yet she has never been in touch with civilisation.

She wants something more out of life and that is when her father gives her what she wants. He gives her a plan and also a rendezvous point which is where government special operations soldiers capture her.

Marissa (Cate Blanchett) who heads the secret government agency is very curious about this girl, seeing her as an experiment in the formation of the perfect killing machine.

Hanna soon escapes the facility and heads to meet her father. Along the way she meets with teenager Sophie (Jessica Barden), brother Miles (Aldo Maland) and parents (Olivia Williams, Jason Flemyng) who are on vacation travelling in their camper.

Hanna needs to meet her father and discover the logic of it all. This is not going to be easy as Marissa and her lackeys (John MacMillan, Tom Hollander) are hot on her heels.

Working from templates that usually dominate such tales as Hansel and Gretel and The Little Mermaid, Joe Wright brings these together with the phenomenon of the conspiracy thriller.

Take a look at the way Hanna looks through those ice-cold eyes when she gazes at the civilisation she has been told about but never experienced. This is Ariel walking on the surface of the world all over again.

Cate Blanchett’s character of Marissa is the wicked witch. This image is further compounded with such sequences as when Marissa comes out of a tunnel through the jaws of a wolf. Ms Ronan’s contribution is quite an ace in the hole for Mr Wright.

The expressions she delivers through her eyes are simply impeccable, as she steels herself throughout the film giving us a character that is well honed and strung, like the bow she so uncannily uses. For such a young actress she demonstrates really strong control with her face – a living embodiment of a cold mask going through the motions. She is almost alien in her performance.

Ms Ronan has followed up her breakthrough performance in Atonement with memorable turnouts in the likes of the Lovely Bones and The Way Back. Here her slender physical frame seems possessed of uncanny flexibility. She takes on the film on her slim shoulders and runs away with it. The pumping intensity is heightened with the use of a superlative Chemical Brothers soundtrack. Up till the arrival of the government agency, the film is music free. Once the helicopters arrive and Hanna is taken prisoner the music starts and it is in your face in its attitude.

Against all odds Mr Wright succeeds against to turn the film’s lofty aspirations into an asset in his favour. He manages to keep the energy level in the film consistent throughout.