Somewhere is the kind of smug, avant-garde nonsense that takes immense satisfaction in going nowhere. As vacuous as its subjects, the film features dead-on-the-inside people looking pensively into their bowls of pasta and excruciating long takes of nothing but Mr. Forlorn flicking between TV channels. Some call this reality, I call it bloody boring.

It’s the latest Oscar-baited offering from writer/director Sofia Coppola, who with a formidable filmography including The Virgin Suicides and Lost in Translation, no longer needs to be mentioned in the same breath as her famed father Francis Ford Coppola (The Godfather, Apocalypse Now). But with Somewhere charting the disconnect between Hollywood acting hot-shot Johnny Marco (Stephen Dorff) and his 11-year-old daughter Cleo (Elle Fanning), the connection seems important. Is this Sofia Coppola faintly referencing her childhood?

If it is, her upbringing sure had its fair share of monotony and melancholy. And to be fair, that’s the point she is obviously trying to make: the rich and famous lead mundane lives just like the rest of us. That much is clear from an early scene where Johnny treats himself to two pole dancers in his hotel room. Emphasising the actor’s unfulfillment, the scene is deliberately drawn out to the point where watching two blonde twins twirl around poles is just as much fun as watching someone fall sleep. Indecently, we’re shown that too.

But wait! There’s plenty more where that came from. There’s Johnny vacantly speed around a racetrack. Johnny vacantly floating in a pool. Johnny vacantly sitting in the makeup chair. Johnny vacantly eating his dinner. Johnny vacantly in the shower. Johnny  vacantly… you get the idea.

All of these scenes are not quick edits, they’re minutes long. Entire songs are played to their conclusion. It’s as if Coppola believes that the longer the shot, the more meaningful it becomes. But given she already made her point loud and clear in the opening few scenes, it just comes across as pure self-indulgence.

There is, however, one redemptive quality to Somewhere: Elle Fanning (Deja Vu). Younger sister to Dakota, 13-year-old Fanning briefly gives the film a character worth investing in. Unlike Stephen Dorff (World Trade Center), who wears Johnny’s pain on his sleeve, Fanning’s heartache is simmering beneath her bubbly exterior. She makes a curious character out of Cleo, and the more she works her way into the story — otherwise known as Johnny’s life — the more engaging the film becomes.

So why then is Somewhere all about joyless Johnny? Why isn’t Cleo the central character of the film? Coppola clearly has a lot more to say about her than she does Johnny, especially if Cleo is channelling her own childhood. I’m sure there’s a fascinating character study to be found beneath all the austerity and misplaced attention, but as it stands, you’d best look somewhere else.

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