Young starlet Saoirse Ronan is set to reunite with her “Atonement” director Joe Wright in Focus Features’ teenage-assassin story, “Hanna,” according to HeatVision. Wright was in negotiations to helm a few weeks ago and now he’s officially onboard. It’s a bit of a no brainer, but we called Ronan’s participation from minute one.
In what will be quite the departure for both she and Wright who are respectively better known for their fragile teenage roles and English period dramas, “Hanna” centers on a “badass” 14-year-old girl who uses the survival skills taught to her from her ex-U.S. military/CIA father to survive a Swedish wilderness, and battle U.S. intelligence agencies while she treks across Europe to be reunited with her dad.
The girl in the story is essentially a savante. She’s never watched TV, she’s never had sweets in her life. Bred to be a cold, killing machine since birth, she is utterly mesmerized when confronted with things as mundane as a “Tom & Jerry” cartoon on TV.
We just finished reading the script and while there’s little backstory or set-up — in many ways it’s kind of empty — it’s still a very fun, fast read and a total page turner and there’s something to be said for that. It also feels like it was written for Ronan specifically. You can’t help but read the story and picture her the entire way. With stunts and cameras you can obviously fake anything, but Ronan nevertheless will likely have to train for several months if she does indeed sign on for this role. Her character is bulked up, strong, lightning fast and ruthlessly and clinically kicks a lot of ass (in a way it slightly reminds us of Soderbergh’s ‘Knockout,’ at least in it’s original inception, only with a younger girl). Whatever the case may be, Ronan is perfect for the role.
“Hanna” is very ‘La Femme Nikita’ with a teenager, but in no way is it dumbing things down for a female teen audience. The script is very ‘Bourne’ and very matter of fact. We’re hoping for another draft to give it a bit more heart (and perhaps coherent story) but we may have already gotten that. The draft we read is only attributed to Seth Lochhead (a relatively newer writer with only one additional IMDB credit) but THR says that David Farr also worked on it (who isn’t even on IMDB, but the script was on the 2009 Blacklist as a favorite).
Hopefully new drafts will help to work out the major motivations, which are generally unclear, either being too subtle or just not fleshed out enough. However, we’d be lying if we didn’t admit to becoming engrossed in the fast pace, with or without clear motives, (some people, like Scriptshadow, hated the script (careful, myriad spoilers) and we think their criticisms are not without value; but they also are hard-core script readers and put a different premium on things. For instance, the CIA/special intelligence forces are after Ronna’s character and her father, but it’s never made abundantly clear why. We have our theories (they’re not rocket science by any means), but divulging them is to essentially spoil the film so we won’t bother. Dunno, for whatever reason, we have a lot of faith in the project. It was the easiest screenplay reading experience we’ve had in a while and let us tell you, it can be a slog some times, so that was at least appreciated. We’re not surprised that the script reportedly drew interest from the likes of Alfonso Cuaron and Danny Boyle who also probably though that, with a little fleshing out, you could really have something.
We’re also intrigued by the idea of someone like Joe Wright tackling this kind of project. Sure, it could be akin to Sam Mendes taking on “Bond 23” (which some have lamented somewhat understandably), but it is also a) not a franchise and b) an original work, so yes, maybe Wright is taking on something more commercial (especially considering his “Indian Summer” drama got shut down before it even had a chance to start), but it’s an interesting step for him we’re willing to see. Plus, we assume a director like him— who’s never been about empty action — sees something in the material and is willing to make people put in the work to give it a brain and an emotional pulse.
In another atypical move, Focus Features is producing and presumably they’ll give it the right care as well. Shooting is slated to begin later this year in Europe (it takes place in the mountains of Sweden, through Turkish villages and other places across Europa) with further casting announcements due — two key parts are the central female antagonist, an agent named Marisa chasing down Hanna and another operative called simply, “The American” who is on her team, but seemingly angling with his own agenda that is ultimately at odds with hers. We put it in our Most Anticipated Films of 2010 feature, but in a wishful thinking section. It’ll surely hit in 2011.
