Hannah

Now, if memory serves, we think Hannah is a film about a CIA program that tries to kill harmless blonde girls who happen to live in the woods with men who may or may not be their fathers/abductors/husbands, directed by the guy who locked Anna Karenina in a theater. Well, we all know how that story ended. In short, we recommend having this scorecard handy before wading into this quagmire of daddy issues.

• Shooting a reindeer with an arrow from a distance so that you can run it down across a frozen tundra and then shoot it with a gun at close range. = 0pts (A dime a dozen in Alaska/Austria/Siberia.)
• Having a 12-year old do it. = +12pts
• Getting beat up by Bruce Banner. = -3pts
• Taking any advice/life lessons from a know-it-all hermit in the middle of the woods. = -2pts
• 7-gallons of whale testicles?! = +15pts
• Those are a lot of dusty old books sitting by a bunch of open flames. = -2pts
• Nightman  revealed: AKA Dr. Bruce Banner. = +5pts
• So you train your wild-child to develop an elaborate back-story, no doubt to prepare her to re-enter society, yet she hysterically screams at the sight of a plane flying overhead? You are a terrible Nightman, Bruce Banner! = -2pts
• Why did they try to make Cate Blanchette look like Tilda Swinton? Isn’t it generally the other way around? = -1pts
• Bruce Banner is your dad?! Thanks for clearing that up, movie. We were starting to feel uncomfortable about the whole living arraignment. = +3pts
• Is that Lady Mary doing a terrible imitation of Cate Blanchette’s terrible Virginian drawl? = +3pts
• You wouldn’t like Bruce Banner’s daughter when she’s angry.  = +10pts
• Okay, seriously, what is up with that late 90’s industrial score? = -4pts
• “So, what I’m proposing is the most secure facility ever constructed by man.” “Yes, I see that. And this facility, will it be…completely secure?” “Absolutely, sir.” “What about this vast network of tunnels connecting all our key security areas?” “Relax. No man could breach security using these tunnels.” “I don’t know, I just watched Aliens the other day and that little blonde girl evaded some pretty mean aliens using tunnels and vents a lot like this.” “Ha! Sir, I think we’d all agree that the likelihood of a tween girl getting loose in the facility, much less one who could effectively navigate these tunnels and pick off the hundreds of armed men patrolling the base, is pretty slim.” “Hahaha! I guess you are right. That’s the last time I take any advice from movies!” = +10pts (For the kids.)
• Didn't anybody check this kid for a multitool? = -2pts
• MIA reference by tween girl who obviously has never heard a single MIA song, ever, which in turn makes us wonder if the director even knows who MIA is. = +5pts
• Indiscriminate use of accents to confuse viewers as to where in the world anyone is. (And this includes the American accents.) = -1pts
• Talking to a albino wild-child who is wearing a prison jumpsuit and not immediately calling the police or flagging down the convoy of military vehicles clearly looking for someone/thing. = +3pts
• At what point did this movie become Firestarter? = +5pts
• MIA-non-fan describing the awesomeness of lesbians in the exact manner she did MIA. Meaning with very little idea at all what she is talking about at all. = -3pts
• It’s hard to describe what is happening here, so we’ll keep it short: Morocco, winter wonderland, transgender burlesque, little person with fake beard, Cate Blanchett’s legs. = +10pts
• Nothing like having your mom breakdown the way in which lipstick is used to trigger mental images of the “labia minora” to your new BF. Thanks, mom! = +6pts (No, really, thanks mom. Our body, ourselves!)
• WILL SOMEBODY ASK ABOUT THIS GIRL’S PARENTS/CALL THE POLICE?! Mainly so we can get back to watching her kill all of them. (-3pts for lack or moral compass -3pts for boredom) = -6pts
• We’re beginning to think Javier Bardem may have aped his performance in Skyfall from the ambiguously gay blonde Hugo Boss Green (HBG) model in this movie. = +3pts (For getting there first.)
• How much better would the “secret-Hannah-in-a-box” scene have been if, instead of witnessing a happy family singing hippie songs and laughing and loving each other, Hannah had instead witnessed a passive aggressive Who’s Afraid of Virginia Woolfe-esque emotional savaging? We think a lot better. At least for Hannah’s future mental state. = -4pts
• Drinking pool water. Barf. = -3pts
• Anticipation at the idea of watching college dudes—wait, we mean college pederasts—die at the hand of HBG. = +10pts (Almost off the charts. +25pts if Hannah does it herself.)
• Apparently everybody in Morocco sings around fires/riverbeds while cleaning clothes. Clearly Hannah needs to have her dad introduce her to Tony Stark. = -3pts
• What’s more uncomfortable: Waiting as you watch a dude in his mid-20s put the moves on a girl who looks barely 14, OR listening to said girl go into a long monologue about all the muscles in the face used in kissing and realizing that it was likely her father who’s been reading her such wonderful bits of information since she could walk? No score, just taking a poll. (The Nightman strikes again!)
• Lost in Translation: Apparently “I’d like to have a friend” in German actually means “I’ll shortly forget my training and as a result you will soon die. Das Bitter.” = +2pts
• Awkward Underage Sex Alert: We haven’t felt this uncomfortable since that scene in the original Let the Right One In. YOU KNOW THE SCENE! = -10pts
• For that Public Transit Scene. = (+5pts for Eric Bana’s hotness +2pts for artful use of single shot +3pts for understated score and slow transformation from Bana’s relaxed confidence to growing sense of doom.) +10pts
• Uh-oh they made him angry. Yay! = +5pts
• Now they made her angry. More yay! = +5pts
• Sending your daughter to creepy magic-hands man after she did all of your killing for you. = -8pts
• Eating raw eggs stored in a dirty old brown box. = -2pts
• Finding out that the man who sequestered you your whole life, who attacked you during all times of the day and night in an effort to “train” you, is in fact not your father, thus giving you a whole new level of issues to deal with. = -10pts (Nightman strikes again!)
• Nightman, meet Day Ma’am. = +3pts
• Overt symbolism of staging final scene in an elaborate rundown Grimm’s Fairytale Land. = +5pts (Because it looks cool and works. You know…because Hannah’s German.)
• Death by banana peel. = +7pts (So long accent!)

Final Score: +71pts

While we realized that our initial perception of this movie was clearly rooted in glancing at a 15-second preview, we found it to be a pretty solid indie action flick that caused us to reevaluate our parenting strategies, as well as our sexual identity.

Score Technician: Sean McConnell