Member Profile | FocusFeatures.com
Subscribe RSSHanna Kicks Ass, As Do These Other Fine Ladies
Posted March 24, 2011 to photo album "Hanna Kicks Ass, As Do These Other Fine Ladies"
Hanna may be a teenage girl, but she’s also a take-no-prisoners assassin. The news is she’s not alone in popular culture.
© Photo by Alex Bailey
Hanna, and the History of Kick Ass Heroines
In Joe Wright’s Hanna, the 16-year-old Hanna Heller (Saoirse Ronan) plays a warrior heroine who has been trained as an assassin by her father Erik Heller (Eric Bana), an ex-CIA agent. From their off-the-grid home in the wilds of Finland, Erik sends Hanna out on assignment. She crosses Europe tangling with evil minions of CIA operative Marissa Wiegler (Cate Blanchett). One need only see Hanna physically dismantle teams of CIA agents to recognize how far evolved her portrayal of a young woman is from the girlish gaiety of Esther Smith (Judy Garland) in “Meet Me in St. Louis” (1944) or the irrepressible effervescence of Pollyanna Whittier (Hayley Mills) in “Pollyana” (1960). But Hanna Heller is not the first kick-ass girl in popular culture. Generations of sisters doing it for themselves have cleared the way for Hanna to appear.
The World's End
We Steal Secrets
Closed Circuit
The Deep
The Place Beyond The Pines
Greetings from Tim Buckley
Admission
Promised Land
Anna Karenina
Eternal Sunshine of the Spotless Mind
Brokeback Mountain
Lost in Translation
Pride & Prejudice
The Pianist
Gosford Park