I couldn't agree more with O'Hehir (and
A.O. Scott). This is a fragile and beautiful, really extraordinary film, quite possibly the year's best. There will be a temptation amongst many to dismiss it as just more observations from a privileged, blinkered view but that does such a disservice to what Coppola shows us and how she shows it to us. I deeply admire her steady patience and sustained reserve.
The film's been compared, rather lazily I think, to Antonioni and though there are some obvious stylistic or thematic parallels his work was not what I thought of during this. I thought more of Nina Menkes' experimental cinema, perhaps especially the Vegas set
Queen of Diamonds with its assemblage of scenes, both protracted and not, designed to represent a life but also the overall context or environment that encourages that life to express itself as it does. In that same vein I was also reminded of the willingness to observe in Asian cinema (the occasional moments of song or music breaking through the vacuum around Johnny Marco and presented as complete scenes of life experience certainly recalls similar such moments in Apichatpong but also recent Miguel Gomes).
Somewhere evokes the charged anomie of Bette Gordon's
Luminous Motion too and even brings to mind the almost subconscious currents of Dumont's
29 Palms (albeit shorn of its very particular Hobbesian Romanticism).
The long scenes of observation are really great and the reason that they are has to do with Coppola's resistance to cutting too quick. I think we've all seen a lot of stuff that looks and feels like this and even plays like it up and to a point. What is different is in her understanding that to show, say, only 15 or 20 seconds of the pole dancing in Johnny's bedroom or a more abbreviated piece from Cleo's ice skating routine would be to make a point with it or about it. Instead, by allowing it to play out as she does, she renders the notion of point elusive and instead (as with someone like Hou--of which more later) just allows for an accretion of both detail and time. This has the effect of settling our senses, pacifying the insistent, driven urge to search for a point or specific meaning. The pure duration of these scenes forces a kind of latent, almost inexpressible understanding that could not come otherwise; either that or we reject them as unnecessarily over extended. The sexual opportunities Grand Illusion mentions are expansive in implication, extending beyond Johnny's sphere of influence or solipsistic bubble. Those moments represent the de facto assumptions and responses of an entire milieu, an entire world. On one hand they are reactions to Johnny's stardom, yes, but they are also indicative of the limited set of responses in general, easily exhausted but just as easily renewed. The key being their ease, the way in which they demand little of anyone. As with the encounter between a distraught Danny Huston and a coterie of high class Hollywood escorts at the end of
ivansxtc, these opportunities can offer up nothing ultimately adequate enough.
The fact that Coppola's aesthetic strategy is and has to be very delicately achieved is clear throughout and scene after scene illustrates her mastery of it. One instance stands out for me: the scene in which Johnny and his daughter are playing Guitar Hero and we see Cleo eventually relax into an easy conversation with Johnny's boyhood friend while he continues on immersed in the game. This could have been a disastrous moment in which the all too obvious point was telegraphed to us with blunt force. Even writing out a description of the events in brief risks that and demonstrates what Coppola is up against. Because the obvious read here is that Johnny is indifferent, negligent, not involved enough. But Coppola never over emphasizes that take on the scene. It's present and possible for those sensitive to it or, more pointedly, pre-disposed toward it as a take. But really what we get here and throughout are just moments in lives represented but with plentiful qualities and enough attention to nuance to make interpretation possible and viable. The irony is that Johnny's late picture flailing, almost formless despair has much to do with the fact that he can't identify what it is that bonds he and his daughter (which for me had to do with Cleo's lack of guile, the purity of her dependance upon him and desire to be with him versus the purely opportunistic and superficial desires of everyone else); so he can't even fully comprehend what exactly he lacks or needs. In other words, it's the idea of definition that remains remote and somewhere else.
I also loved the head cast moment referred to earlier. With its super gradual tightening in of the frame the sense of claustrophobia and isolation is emphasized but, once again, without bluntly underlining that as having larger metaphorical implications. This moment is also rhymed beautifully toward the end in the equally slow pull back shot from Johnny and Cleo at the pool, suggesting the kind of comfortable ease that allows for a relase and opening up in attitude and experience. This is also one of the relatively few scenes that is actively scored to music. That general lack does not necessarily imply a hollow life but it does imply a void that can be filled with expressivity and realization.
I've seen a number of commenters obsessed apparently over the identity of the person sending Johnny the vaguely threatening texts throughout the picture. But this is not some mystery to be resolved; it's actually a device similar in spirit and tone to Hou's employment of the titular Red Balloon in his recent film. It's an anchor line reminding us of how Johnny is generally perceived and understood, his revealed external persona, but in its presence there is also a method of rhythm and structure. This is not the way in which details of this sort are generally understood or employed in American film, indie or not. The seemingly off the cuff
Twilight reference is also perfectly handled and integrated as that same kind of astute and insightful accent. And once again, how we take that little bit of dialogue, what we make of it, is resolutely left up to us as all the while such details and their suggestive associations continue to accumulate. This is a definite sign of Coppola's striking, even remarkable, maturation and artistic wisdom. I hope she'll be given the credit she deserves for it.