One of Saoirse Ronan’s Earliest Movies Is an Underrated Action Thriller

From the very beginning of her acting career, Saoirse Ronan had been an acclaimed actress. Her third onscreen acting credit, playing 13-year-old Briony Tallis in Atonement, resulted in her first Oscar nomination. From there, she immediately catapulted to working with filmmakers like Peter Jackson, Peter Weir, Wes Anderson, John Crowley, Greta Gerwig, Steve McQueen, and more. Ronan’s an accomplished performer, famous for taking on challenging roles and her iconic line deliveries. Few modern actors of any age can imbue lines with as much instant gravitas as she can.

Those feats, along with her focus on largely indie and arthouse fare, can make it difficult to remember that one of Ronan’s first star vehicles was a propulsive action thriller. Hanna (2001), from director Joe Wright, saw Ronan play a young gun-toting assassin. It was a role she crushed while reaffirming her immense versatility.

Hanna Is One of Many High Quality Joe Wright Movies

Joe Wright is one of those directors who can be easy to take for granted. When you’re a film geek of a certain young age, Wright’s works can come off as shallow exercises lacking gravitas, much like Baz Luhrmann. It’s easier to appreciate Wright’s dexterity and constant ambition once you become more well-seasoned in cinema. Wright’s got his share of misfires (like The Woman in the Window or Pan), but it’s admirable how he embraces everything from period piece romantic dramas to musicals to even Hitchcock pastiches.

That ambition extends to Hanna, which concerns the young Hanna (Ronan) being trained by her dad (Eric Bana) to be an incredible assassin. CIA agent Marissa Wiegler (Cate Blanchett) is sent to wipe out Hanna and her dad, which means it’s time for Hanna to put her skills to the test. Even as Hanna grapples with tremendous personal revelations, Wiegler has no idea how accomplished this young killer is. What follows is a story full of engaging drama, but also great suspenseful set pieces and terrifically absorbing action beats.

Wright proves a deft hand at handling those nail-biter and cheer-worthy moments. Nicely, though, this Pride & Prejudice veteran’s gift for richly human performances doesn’t get lost in the shuffle. Ronan, Bana, and Blanchett all turn in tremendous work here that lends a distinctly human ambiance to a story that could’ve just melted into chaotic gimmicky mayhem. Plus, there’s tremendous entertainment in watching award season darlings like Blanchett and Ronan’s richly detailed acting juxtaposed against all those bullets soaring through the air.

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Ronan is Hanna’s Not So Secret Weapon

Unsurprisingly, it’s Saoirse Ronan who really crushes it in Hanna, particularly in any scenes reinforcing Hanna’s humanity. Later sequences chronicling the character reacting to shocking developments about her familial lineage especially ache the soul thanks to Ronan’s tremendous finesse. Anchoring a whole movie around such a terrific lead performance helps Hanna immensely. This isn’t Ronan slumming it in a genre movie. It’s another quality movie that lets her tap into her best talents, particularly since she’s reuniting with Atonement helmer Wright.

Similarly, playing against type to entertaining results is Cate Blanchett. Normally, Blanchett exudes an ethereal, magnificent aura that makes her feel like a vision from a dream. It’s a quality that perfectly informed her iconic performances in movies like Carol, The Aviator, and Black Bag. Seeing her play someone who’s firmly a villain is already an exciting bit of creative against-type casting. However, the decision to emphasize the character’s vulnerability makes it an especially fascinating aberration in Blanchett’s filmography. Naturally, given that this is Cate Blanchett we’re talking about, she nails the assignment.

You don’t need to have an encyclopedic knowledge of the respective filmographies of Hanna’s two principal actors to enjoy this 2011 action/thriller (which also doubles, thematically, as a modern-day Grimm’s fairytale. Anyone who enjoys movies that keep you on the edge of your seat or films with compelling twisty storytelling will inevitably get engrossed by this tremendously involving thriller. However, in the context of Ronan’s larger career, it’s an especially fascinating accomplishment. Here in Hanna, Ronan’s range was more visible than ever. Providing a superb action thriller lead is just one of the many gifts this performer has delivered to the cinema in the last two decades.

Hanna is now streaming on Netflix.