"Tanner Hall": Or, that one movie Rooney Mara was in before "The Girl with the Dragon Tattoo" (no not "The Social Network")

Rooney Mara in "Tanner Hall"

There’s a saying that everyone has at least one book in them, and I suppose that’s probably true for (most) people and films too. Everyone has at least one story they could make into a movie. But, as the late Christopher Hitchens once said, “everybody does have a good book in them, but in most cases that’s where it should stay.” And that statement is certainly even truer of people and films. You might have a story to tell, but will anyone besides you and your best friend—who you wrote the script (and co-directed; and co-produced) with—want to watch it?

That’s a question I have a feeling co-writer/director/producers of “Tanner Hall” Franesca Gregorini and Tatiana von Furstenberg never asked themselves. Had they, perhaps their film wouldn’t be such a bland, boring, banal waste of celluloid. It’s not that their film is awful—its nicely shot and adequately acted—but the story, an obvious pseudo-autobiography with undertones of self-referential 80s-ness despite its seemingly contemporary setting, appears to be one giant in-joke between the two besties. The film appeals to no one but its creators. It doesn’t try to appeal to anyone else either.

And, then again, perhaps Gregorini and von Furstenberg did ask the question, know the answer, and just don’t care.

Their story is a plainly predictable, cliché indie dramedy, filled with cardboard characters and generic genre staples barely holding up a stale piecemeal plot. Tanner Hall is the name of the all girls boarding school where Fernanda (Rooney Mara) spends most of her year, away from a mother she detests for being… well… her mother (“We do share something, mother,” she thinks to herself in voice-over. “We share silence.”). At school she has a close-knit circle of friends—the frumpy Lucasta (Amy Ferguson), a barely closeted lesbian into comic books and female super heroes, and Kate (a pre-“Scott Pilgrim” (2010) Brie Larson), the blonde party girl who openly flirts with everyone, including her male teachers—and a new, but really old, nemesis named Victoria (Georgia King), a spoiled rich bitch, that’s actually the daughter of her mother’s best friend, who manipulates everyone around her just to feel liked. Fern and Victoria were friends once, when they were like three or something. But then Victoria killed her grandmother’s parakeet and that’s the ultimate metaphor for Fern’s loss of innocence or something, and now the two girls hate each other, even though they haven’t seen each other in years.

But that all changes early on in “Tanner Hall” and the two have to deal with their problems because Vicky, and her posh British accent, has invaded Fern’s school like the Beatles taking over Ed Sullivan. And deal they will, but only in a convoluted, roundabout and totally last minute way, where the resolution feels forced when it happens and yet completely inevitable until it does. Between the arrival of Victoria and the expected problems she causes for “Tanner Hall’s” protagonist, and the ultimate resolution of all things wrong with the world at exactly the 86-minute mark, Gregorini and von Furstenberg shoehorn in a series of side-plots and conflicts stolen from other, better, indie movies (or, perhaps, their own lives in a few cases). There’s the dangerous flirtations Kate has with a married English teacher (Chris Kattan), who is unfulfilled in his marriage to a fellow teacher at the school (Amy Sedaris), which feels ripped from some strange hybrid of “Election” (1999) and “American Beauty” (1999). There’s Victoria’s fascination with death, and her ultimate death wish, secret attempts at suicide and psychotic cutting, which… really, I just don’t care. The character isn’t developed enough to really matter all that much. She’s the villain, until she’s not. The end.

In the biggest subplot—one that arcs over the entire film alongside the old-friends-become-enemies-but-eventually-become-besties main plot—Fernanda falls for an older man, Gio (Tom Everett Scott), the husband of one of her mom’s pregnant friends. Gio gives Fernanda LPs of old bands (insert rad references to the 80s here) and consciously flirts back at her; he even teaches her how to “drive stick”, by which of course I mean how to drive his Nissan 240Z (again, ridiculous reference to the 80s), which has a manual transmission. Gio wouldn’t mind doing the other thing too, as we learn later during an uncomfortable attempt at dramatic comedy from the writer/director duo (apparently, statutory rape can be funny; who knew?). Gio does all this because he’s not really ready to be a father, and feels like the soon-to-be-delivered baby has forced him into his marriage and is already stifling his creativity. It’s a plot point oddly reminiscent of a subplot in “Juno” (2007). The only ounce of semi-originality in the entire film comes from the Luc-is-a-lesbian storyline—in only that she has a male friend, the local pizza boy, outside of the group who has fallen in love with her and she doesn’t want to lose him because she feels a close, nonsexual, bond too—but it’s hardly developed, holds no surprises, and ultimately, despite what I wrote at the beginning of this sentence, isn’t original at all.

Originally filmed and produced independently in 2008 and early 2009, “Tanner Hall” languished in distribution hell for years. It was only picked up by Anchor Bay in late 2010 during a festival run when Sony let slip that Rooney Mara was cast as Lisbeth Salander in David Fincher’s upcoming “Girl with the Dragon Tattoo” (2011). If Mara hadn’t been cast, I expect “Tanner Hall” would’ve never seen proper distribution—least of all the brief theatrical bow it had in September of this year and the blu-ray release its enjoying now. Both are perfectly timed to coincide with “Dragon Tattoo” press. The theatrical window of “Hall” was aligned perfectly with the advertising ramp up of Fincher’s feature. The blu-ray arrives mere weeks before “Tattoo” hits theaters.

And Mara’s the real draw here I suppose. But she plays such a generic, girly, woe-is-me teenager with lots of superficial rich-white-girl problems that, although her performance is decent, I see no reason to watch it in preparation for her debut as Salander. Well, no. It might prove interesting to see how the performances are so completely different, as the Salander character is almost the complete opposite of Fern.

*1/2 (1 1/2) out of ***** (5) stars

Editorial Note: this review was originally written for DVDCompare.net, another site where I write. For further information, and a look at the video and audio qualities and special features on the blu-ray disc, read more here. 

Directed and written by: Franesca Gregorini and Tatiana von Furstenberg
Starring: Rooney Mara, Georgia King, Brie Larson, Amy Ferguson, Tom Everett Scott with Amy Sedaris and Chris Katan
Rating: R
Runtime: 95 minutes (1 hour, 35 minutes)
Studio: Starz/Anchor Bay