"Hanna": A Fairy Tale 'to Die For'

Once upon a time, there was a young girl who lived with her father in a cabin in the woods. When the girl was sixteen, she decided she was ready to go out into the world. Once she entered the world, however, she discovered it was full of strange things she had never seen: strange rooms, wicked witches, and preying wolves. She would have to struggle and fight to keep herself safe, and reunite with her father.

This is not an abbreviated fairy tale from Grimm. But perhaps, when looked at closely, we can view "Hanna" as just that.

"Hanna," directed by Joe Wright and starring Saoirse Ronan, Eric Bana, and Cate Blanchett, is a beautifully captured film that wraps up the beauty and mystique of Grimm's fairy tales and delivers itself as a heart-thumping thrill ride. Viewers who are familiar with Wright's filmography will appreciate the soft colors, panoramic shots, and careful scene setting that carry Ronan's Hanna throughout the film.

Wright is also known for his careful transferal of the literary page to the silver stage, as witnessed in his "Pride and Prejudice" and "Atonement." In "Hanna," Wright cleverly both escapes and maintains his niche by recasting the world of Jacob and Wilhelm Grimm's fairy tales. In the film, Hanna lives in a secluded cabin in the woods, where her sole entertainment-besides long readings by her father from the Encyclopedia-is paging through a hand-bound collection of (what else but) Grimm's Fairy Tales. Her main pursuer, a CIA-agent named Marissa (Blanchett), comes across as something between a wicked witch and evil step-mother-blending, as it were, both villains of the Hansel and Gretel fairy tale. Tom Hollander-an apparent favorite of Wright's in terms of casting-portrays a wolfish villain who announces himself eerily to a child in the film as "the Sandman." Hanna and her father's journeys lead them both to "the Grimm House," where Hanna eventually escapes (literally) "on the backs of swans" ... a concept that comes, once more, straight out of Hansel and Gretel.

Beyond the kick-butt action-Hanna has no problems shooting or snapping the necks of anyone who gets in her way-and beautiful cinematography, "Hanna" is a film that seems trapped within the niche Joe Wright has developed for himself. Though he manages to take the action genre and make it something beautiful, and at times even profound, there is still the suggestion that he is trying to prove something. Whether it is an attempt to prove something about himself as a director or prove to an audience that action films can be beautiful, Wright at times overworks the film. Hanna coming up from a manhole and travelling through the desert clinging to the bottom of a truck seems cool, but is also so unrealistic it pulls the audience away from the beauty of the film and clues them in to the fact that Wright has a point to prove.

"Hanna" also suffers from following the footsteps of one too many previous action films with similar storylines. In 2010, "Kick-Ass" provided audiences with a just-as-if-not-more-lethal pint-sized young girl who suffered with the conflict between a life of action and the life of a "normal" little girl. At the same time, we have the "Bourne" films, which pair action with romance and seeking out the truth behind a mysterious hero's past. Where the film diverges from these others is in its representation of a girl who has the opportunity to interact with a "normal" family and choose between their life and her own. The story carries a definite series of morals-be it the repercussions of living a lie or the need to rethink what we consider "normal."

Overall, "Hanna" is a solid film that, though perhaps working too hard to get its own message across, effectively reminds us that life is never as certain as black and white scenarios, that nurture versus nature is not always an easy dichotomy to distinguish, and sometimes "happily ever after" can be very, very deadly.