Hanna
A lazy person would call it Bourne in a training bra. Thank god I’m not a lazy person.

Unlike Pamela Anderson, Heidi Fleiss and the old man I used to see from the train who wore a rope for a belt and sponges on his head, Hanna suffers from having an overimpressive trailer.

From the very first, minute-long teaser I saw – a symphony of icy blonde hair and frozen trees – I had imagined the whole film as an Hoth-esque work of tundran suspense and beauty. Like Narnia, but with chin-ups. Or Siberia, but with an elfin badass running along all those roads made of revolutionary Russian bones.

Then came the second, official trailer, in which we see the bleach-browed Saoirse Ronan getting elbows-deep in a dead moose. She is deadly, her father is mad and, wouldyabelieveit, Cate Blanchett wants her dead. So, this is an assassin story; an on-the-run story; a you’re-not-quite-sure-of-their-mission-or-identity-but-you’ll-root-for-them-anyway story. A lazy person would call it Bourne in a training bra. Thank god I’m not a lazy person.

Now. Saoirse Ronana may look like a cross between Tilda Swinton, Legolas and a creature from the Dark Crystal, but she is one of the most absorbing screen presences of the millennium. Yes, all eleven years of it. So, for most of the film I was just happy to watch her being generally intriguing as she sprinted from genre to genre. Because, like a thinking man’s comic book movie, Hanna is more a composite of short vignettes than feature film. There is the pumping soundtrack action music video, the comic family road movie, the classic good versus evil thriller, then Sapphic coming of age trope and the clunky genetic sci-fi short.

Talking of screen presences, I thoroughly enjoyed Jessica Barden’s performance as Sophie. Last seen as the shit-stirring, hormone-meddling, bus stop bitch in Tamara Drewe, Barden is funny, thoroughly convincing and a perfect counterpart to Ronan’s mid-European ethereal assassin. Eric Bana is great when he’s on screen, which isn’t much, and Cate Blanchett is channelling a very good Katie Cox from Burn After Reading – auburn bob and all.

So, in short, if you like the aforementioned mix of genres, have amnesia or simply can’t decide what sort of film you’re in the mood for – and don’t mind a film hanging together like a jumper made of Doritos then you’ll probably thoroughly enjoy Hanna.

If it’s an ice-blasted portrait of Siberian survival and human endurance you’re after, just watch Rocky IV.

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