I decided to rent something I knew I'd enjoy this weekend: the film "Hanna" by Joe Wright. Before I say anything, I'll say this: I chose well. It's a fun film with great characters, great acting, and very creative direction.
Hanna is a young teenage girl living with her burly father, Erik. He's a lumberjack that doesn't need an axe. He's so well-skilled in the art of hand-to-hand combat that he's molded his own daughter into a deadly assassin. She's so friggin' deadly that father-daughter combat time results in Hanna always winning.
Oh, and did I mention that they're living in some shack in the wilderness of Northern Finland? For those of us who have never been to Finland, well, they may as well be in Antarctica. It's complete isolation. No contact with the outside world. And Hanna's proof of this. She knows nothing of the world but what she reads in encyclopedias and dictionaries. She can quote word-for-word the definition of music, but she's never heard it. And that's the defining characteristic of Hanna. No matter how deadly or skilled she is, no matter how many gun-wielding assassins she kills, no matter how mature she may seem, she's still a little girl that has yet to find herself.
So, in essence, the film is just a coming-of-age story masquerading as a deadly assassin action flick. And that's why "Hanna" is fun and entertaining. The characters! They're 3 dimensional. They seem like real people in an extraordinary situation. I won't give away what that situation is, but I'll tell you this:
The inciting incident, the moment that propels the characters into that extraordinary situation, makes no sense at all.
The moment works, in some way, because it allows our protagonist, Hanna, to make a choice: Stay here and be safe with your father, or venture into the world where you won't be safe and nothing will ever be the same again.
What's great about that choice is that it speaks to Hanna's character need. She needs to learn more about the world through experience, and, by extension, more about herself. The only way to do that is to make the dangerous choice of facing the enemy that she, and we, do not yet know.
So the moment is great. It's always great to put the story in your protagonist's hands by giving her a choice. But the moment is flawed.
Her father, Erik, unearths a buried box that looks to be a GPS beacon of sorts from a downed airplane. If Hanna wants to let their enemies know where they are, she needs only press the red button.
Oooookay. So she hits the red button and shit hits the fan. Interesting. But answer me this, oh Riddler: is there not a third choice?
1. Stay in bumfuck Finland with only your batshit crazy father for company.
2. Hit the red button and announce your location to your enemies.
or...
3. Don't stay in bumfuck Finland, don't hit the stupid red button, and pack up your shit and hit the road. Without hitting that red button, you'll be able to experience the world without assassins chasing you around every corner.
I don't know about you, but I'm going with choice #3 every day of the week and twice on Sunday. I mean, how is that not an option?!? She doesn't want to stay in Finland's isolated wilderness and she shouldn't want to put herself and her father in harms way. So, logically, she should just re-bury that GPS beacon and go on a vaycay with her batshit crazy papa. Lord knows he needs it too.
And that's my main problem with "Hanna." Sure, movies always have logic holes, especially action thrillers. But it can't, I repeat canNOT, be the incident that sets your story into motion. If that moment doesn't make sense, then the entire story does. not. make. sense!
The film is fun and fiery, sure. But it doesn't matter how fiery the movie is when its very foundation is flawed.
You hear this analogy all the time. Movies compared to buildings. That's because movies are like buildings. The script is the blueprint, the development is the foundation, and the released film in the finished building. If you don't want your building to crumble, you've gotta take care of any problems at the blueprint stage. If not then, at least make sure the logic holes are fixed during development. You can't let those holes make it into the finished film. If you do, your building crumbles. Your story is flawed at its foundation.
That's "Hanna." Fun and fiery until it crumbles under its own weight.
It's too bad. It was a beautiful building, a beautiful story. But it was never going to hold up because of its blueprint.
Fun, fiery, but, ultimately... flawed.
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