Hanna
Genre: Action
Director: Joe Wright
Stars: Saoirse Ronan, Cate Blanchett, Eric Bana
***
Hanna is Little Red Riding Hood by way of Frankenstein. If this sounds like one fractured fairy tale, it is — and it’s also a thriller where the women are tougher and wilier than the men.
These wildly disparate elements successfully blend in part because director Joe Wright doesn’t force them, at least until the theme park denouement where Cate Blanchett is literally framed by her wolf metaphor.
There’s natural interplay between the almost medieval world we’re presented with at the outset and the modern one it turns into. Contradictions collide and connect in the screenplay, much the way the throbbing score by the Chemical Brothers suggests both innocence and menace.
What really pulls the package together, however, is the chase between Saoirse Ronan’s feral title anti-hero and Cate Blanchett’s bloodless CIA agent Marissa.
For much of the film, we’re not sure exactly who is after who. Call it Red Riding Hood vs. Big Bad Wolf, or vice-versa; it’s a rare example of two great female actors driving an action pulse-raiser.
Extras include deleted scenes, an alternate ending, director’s commentary and a making-of featurette.
