HANNAH Reveals the Making of a Pariah

(No spoilers)

There’s little dialogue in Hannah. I was afraid this film would be one of those where at the end you say, “It’s over? What was this movie about anyway?”

Well, when this film ended, I knew exactly what happened even though no one ever actually said it. That’s brilliant.

Imagine a retired couple having built and built over the decades just to have it all crash down because of the husband’s egregious transgression.

The film opens with Hannah, played by the magnificent Charlotte Rampling, attending some sort of a class where the participants do primal screaming and they also read plays out loud. This seems to be a rewarding activity for her—at first—although it seems out of character, which makes it interesting.

Hannah comes home, pets the dog, and starts dinner. In the next scene we witness her sitting at the table with her husband, having a silent dinner. The next day, she takes him to prison. 

In one of the telephone calls he’s allowed to make, he tells her he’s innocent. He’s angry at the people who put him in prison, including a loved one. 

The rest of the story is all about the making of a pariah. Little by little, Hannah is excluded further and further from the life she and her husband built. One scene is especially devastating for her, and it was for me as well, but, is she partially at fault?

I watched Hannah on Hoopla, available for free through my local library. It’s also on Amazon Prime to rent or buy. 

I’ve always liked Charlotte Rampling, but this performance inspired me to add all of her available movies to my DVDNetflix queue. She doesn’t have top billing in all of them, but I want to see them anyhow. The oldest dates back to Georgy Girl (1966). Some of them I’ve already seen, like Melancholia and Swimming Pool. I can’t wait to see them again.