There is an image from Hanna, a rare pivot from director Joe Wright, that I haven’t thought about since the film’s premiere in 2011. But the moment I caught a glimpse of then-15-year-old Saoirse Ronan, bleach-blonde brows turning her blue eyes even icier, bow and arrow in hand, I recalled my obsession with the film in a rush of out-of-body clarity. Hanna was something like wish fulfillment when it hit theaters 15 years ago. Wright had already endeared himself to the teen girl audience with the one-two punch of Pride & Prejudice and Atonement — but with the 2010s came an experimental phase, and it effectively began with this wild hodge-podge of a movie that slots somewhere between dark fairytale, coming-of-age movie, and spy thriller. Critics might not have known what to make of its story then, but at 15, the same age as Ronan’s eponymous heroine, Wright’s pivot into punk rock spoke to the burgeoning punk in me.
After back-to-back period romances, Wright was keen to deconstruct the reputation he’d so effortlessly built with his feature debut and sophomore triumph. “I wanted to smash it all up a bit, really,” he told IndieWire at the time. “I love the idea that we are free to change and develop. I think the idea of making the same type of film throughout your career would be really boring.”
