If you have seen Sofia Coppola's previous trilogy and loved it, it would be dishonest to say that "Somewhere" brings about that same emotional involvement: frankly speaking, me and everyone in the theater (few people, indeed, considering it had shortly been awarded with Leone d'oro in Venice) showed perplexed faces and some kind of disappointment. Given as a premise that we, as viewers, are no longer used to slowness, silence, and pauses, it is incontrovertible that even the most patient and quiet spectator would get a little annoyed and bored by long, extremely quiet scenes, where nothing happens, nothing is said, and life simply succumb to the wearing-out power of wasted, useless, unproductive time. Jonnie Marco is hard-living world-famous actor wasting his numb life in a hotel in Los Angeles, drinking, smoking, having private sexy shows in his room, driving his Ferrari, which even once breaks down leaving him on the road. When his 11-year old daughter appears, something is shaken inside his fragile and inconsistent world, he at least starts feelings something. Not that he changes so much, his relation with Cleo remains in a way made up of short exchanges of words, very rare demonstrations of love, but it's a positive relation, where each one is able to accept the other for what he/she is (and shouldn't affection work like this?). The merit of Sofia Coppola (this is the first movie directed being a mother herself) is to depict this relation in a realistic way, the father won't undergo an extraordinary change, as it would be improbable and unrealistic, he just starts embracing the idea that there can be a meaning, somewhere. As the almost intolerable slowness, well, it is the best way to render the complete void and nonsense in the protagonist's life, where everything is a bore, and time a burden, we no doubt feel the oppression of his unprofitable passing of time, of his lack of real acquaintances, of sane company, of real life, mainly in the first part of the movie. When Cleo appears, time turns into profitable and meaningful, and so he can spend hours on the edge of a swimming pool, without speaking, but her daughter laying beside him makes a substantial difference of quality. The always delicate touch, typical of Sofia Coppola' style, is to be appreciated also here, although certainly the director, now become a mother, shows a more mature and more lucid, in a way more simple, consciousness about life, which seems here more clear, definite and evident than in her previous productions, things are black or white, you cannot hide behind too many complications, when you have born a child, and when you realize that she is the only precious thing you have done in your life, you know what kind of man you have to be.
