3 Short Paragraphs: Violet & Daisy

2011, Geoffrey Fletcher -- download

Its odd the way the brain works but for some reason I associate Saoirse Ronan as a young woman type-cast in violent movies. But really, it only really centers around Hanna.  Sure, many of her other movies have violence as part of the plot (The Host, The Lovely Bones, Byzantium) but nothing so much as tossed her in the centre of such as Hanna and this one. Maybe its because I still believe she should have been Katniss.

Again, Ms Ronan is playing a Daisy. This time, she is a wispy teenage waif in a movie that is almost entirely style and little substance. Daisy & Violet are assassins, working for an anonymous boss in NYC, slaying whomever he assigns and spending the money on clothes and the latest pop star to catch their attention. They are both broken girls, with some plot points hinting at asylums and breakdowns, who are not quite attached to reality. The story here is around a single hit, the man (James Gandolfini) who asked for it, and the complications that ensue.

The movie is all over the place, sometimes being strangely dreamy with flashbacks and sequences that may be in their head. Sometimes, as expected in a movie about teen assassins, it is stylish-ultra-violence. It attempts to be introspective, with Daisy connecting with the man they are supposed to kill, father-figure and such. It tries to hint at a deeper story but never really explores it, thus failing. I liked elements of it, but really, I could never really recommend except perhaps as a study as to how a first time director should do and not do certain things.