Somewhere

Review

Sofia Coppola’s absent-daddy issues are front and center in Somewhere, about a rich and promiscuous movie star (Stephen Dorff) who is, in existential terms, nowhere, and the young daughter (Elle Fanning) he barely sees but has to tote along on a promotional trip to Italy. This is a mood piece, shapeless but often lyric. There is, on one hand, all that sex and wealth and glamour; on the other, a floating wistfulness in the absence of home. Coppola’s poor-rich-girl vision is certainly consistent, although you sometimes wonder if she knows that hers is not the universal human condition. — David Edelstein