Sofia Coppola has been given much attention in her career due to the fact that she is cinema royalty as
Francis Ford's daughter. Yet, what Sofia has proven that with her four films, she is a great director and a great director of the female voice. We have seen this with
The Virgin Suicides, Lost in Translation, Marie Antoinette and her 2010 film,
Somewhere. Somewhere was Sofia's first film since her 2005 epic,
Marie Antoinette and a much more quieter, softer, smaller film for her as a director and writer. The film is about a fictional Hollywood action hero, Johnny Marco (
Stephen Dorff) and his internal crisis of hating the Hollywood system and celebrity life but also embracing the idea that anything he wants he can get. This all comes full circle for him when he is staying in L.A.'s infamous Chateau Marmont hotel and his daughter Cleo (
Elle Fanning in her first role) comes to visit. What we see as the audience is that Cleo is taking care of her father and not the roles are reverse. We see how they interact and how he is a proud father and wants to be there for his daughter more but feels trapped in the celebrity cycle. As his career continues on the same circle, we see how he wants more and how, like any father, wants to be with his little girl more.
Somewhere is a film that only Sofia could direct, though we do not know if any of this is autobiographical, but it clearly is a film that only she could do. With original music by
Phoenix,
Somewhere is a mostly silent film that says so much.
