Script Analysis: “Hanna” — Scene By Scene Breakdown
Here is my take on this exercise from a previous series of posts — How To Read A Screenplay:
Here is my take on this exercise from a previous series of posts — How To Read A Screenplay:
After a first pass, it’s time to crack open the script for a deeper analysis and you can do that by creating a scene-by-scene breakdown. It is precisely what it sounds like: A list of all the scenes in the script accompanied by a brief description of the events that transpire.
For purposes of this exercise, I have a slightly different take on scene. Here I am looking not just for individual scenes per se, but a scene or set of scenes that comprise one event or a continuous piece of action. Admittedly this is subjective and there is no right or wrong, the point is simply to break down the script into a series of parts which you then can use dig into the script’s structure and themes.
The value of this exercise:
- We pare down the story to its most constituent parts: Scenes.
- By doing this, we consciously explore the structure of the narrative.
- A scene-by-scene breakdown creates a foundation for even deeper analysis of the story.
Today: Hanna (2011). You may download the script here.
Screenplay by Seth Lochhead and David Farr, story by Seth Lochhead.
IMDb plot summary: A sixteen-year-old girl who was raised by her father to be the perfect assassin is dispatched on a mission across Europe, tracked by a ruthless intelligence agent and her operatives.
Hanna
Scene-By-Scene Breakdown
By John Arends
GoIntoTheStory.com
Page 1: We meet HANNA (14) as she hunts, kills and butchers a reindeer in the forests of northern Finland.
Page 2: ERIK (40s) is suddenly behind her; they fight, heavy and serious, Erik coaching her.
Page 3–6: We learn that Erik has been raising Hanna in a cabin in the woods, teaching her survival and fighting skills, and how to speak in several languages. Home schooling her by firelight and encyclopedias.
Page 7: Hanna, in bed, pulls out a Grimm’s Fairy Tales book, missing pages, stained with old blood. The book mark is a photo strip showing Hanna’s mother, JOANNA ZADEK, pregnant and mugging playfully in the photo booth.
Page 8–10: More training. Hanna and Erik at full sprint run across a frozen lake. Hanna falls through the ice, is pulled by a current away from the hole. A frantic Erik races to get ahead of her, breaks through and pulls her out. And she’s pissed off at him: “I would have found a way” to rescue myself, she tells him.
Page 11–12: After Hanna defeats Erik in another training fight, she insists: “I’m ready.”
Page 12–13: As Hanna trains on her own, and sees her first airplane skimming above the trees, Erik goes to a hiding place in the woods, retrieves a homing device. Erik presents it to Hanna: “It tells Marissa Wiegler where we are. When you want to leave here, flip the switch. But once it’s done, there’s no going back. She’ll never give up until you are dead, or she is.”
Page 14: Erik reads to Hanna about the early space program in Russia, which sent innocent dogs to die on one-way missions into space.
Page 15: Hanna flips the switch on the locator. Whispers to herself: “Marissa Wiegler. Come and find me.”
Pages 16–19: Intro MARISSA WIEGLER awakening in her apartment in Virginia. Intercut with Hanna and Erik at the cabin. Erik’s attitude has changed, from distant, cold-hearted trainer to more fatherly protector.
Page 20A-20B: CIA HQ in Langley, Virginia. The locator beacon is one of theirs. We learn Marissa was Erik’s handler. As we intercut between the cabin and Langley, we see Eric getting cleaned up, donning a suit, while Marissa V.O.s his ops history to three CIA types: LEWIS in Europe, and WALT and BOB in Langley. Erik’s dossier includes evidence he assassinated a JOHANNA ZADEK — the woman in the photo booth pictures that Hanna uses as a bookmark. They decide to use Lewis to go after Erik. Lewis tells them it will be a simple ops: “One man, one day operation.”
Page 21:-22: Erik gives Hanna instructions about what to do after she presumably kills Marissa, then leaves the cabin. As we watch Erik disappear in the woods, we cut to an insertion of a 30-man special ops team at the edge of the woods. Led by Lewis. Hanna kills two men before Lewis and team storm in. They don’t realize she was the killer.
Page 23–24: Lewis informs Marissa that all they found was a little girl, Hanna, who is now in a holding cell at Military Camp G. This news shocks Marissa.
Page 25–26: Hanna’s initial interrogation goes nowhere until she whispers: “I want to speak to Marissa Wiegler.” Marissa tells Lewis to let Hanna know that she is coming to see her.
Page 27: DNA Lab at Camp G: Two doctors look in disbelief at the results of Hanna’s blood sample and a DNA match that “can’t be right.”
Page 27–28: A “False Marissa” enters Hanna’s holding cell with two guards, with the real Marissa watching from a remote viewing room at Langley. Hanna asks the False Marissa how she met her father, a test question. The real Marissa feeds her the information via earphone link. Hanna seems able to read the lie, but then starts to cry. The False Marissa opens her arms and hugs Hanna close.
Page 29–30: Hanna breaks the neck of the False Marissa, grabs a guard’s gun and kills them both, plus a doctor. Then shoots out the video cameras. In Lewis’ monitoring room, we see all the cameras go blank.
Page 30–32: Hanna appears in the laboratory, kills one doctor, spares the other who’s holding her DNA test results stamped with the word: “Abnormal.” Hanna disappears, escaping into the ventilation duct system. [NOTE TO SCREENWRITER SETH: John August is not happy about this.]
Page 33: Hanna slides and tumbles and crawls to a manhole cover, pops it and emerges into the MOROCCAN DESERT.
Page 34: Hanna escapes by pulling an Indiana Jones grab-the-undercarraige-of-a-jeep move. Ends up alone in the desert.
Page 34: Marissa’s Apartment: She’s packing a suitcase. Then from a hidden safe she pulls out a blue folder marked: GALINKA. INTERCUT with the following flashback, Marissa burns and then stuffs the GALINKA file ashes down the kitchen sink disposal.
Page 35: FLASHBACK: 1995. Marissa, highly stressed, steps from behind a tree into a road and shoots blindly into an on-rushing car. In the car is Erik, Johanna and a 2-year-old Hanna with her Grimm’s book open. Gunshots burst the glass. Blood spills across the book. The car plows into a tree.
Page 36: Erik, carrying Hanna in one arm, drags the dying Joanna away from the car wreck. Marissa is running toward them. Erik must let Johanna go if he’s going to save Hanna. Makes that choice. Johanna’s dying breath, to Marissa: “She’ll never be yours…”
Page 37–38: End of FLASHBACK. BACK TO DESERT — Hanna marches alone through the alien landscape, throat parched, no idea where she is or is going. She has a sudden encounter with a nouveau hippie family in an old van.
Page 39: Marissa, on an airline flight, talking to Lewis on a cell phone: “Focus on Erik Heller, who is a threat to the security of the US; the girl is not a threat.”
Page 40–42: Hanna comes upon an oasis, where Berber women are doing laundry. She steals some clothes to blend in. Nearby, she comes upon a huge bazaar, more humanity than she’s ever seen. She spots the American hippy family, follows them to a hotel fashioned from mud.
Pages 43–45: Hanna speaks Arabic to the hotel operator and asks for a room. He puts her up in a basement room. The modern conveniences mystify and then frighten her. She meets the American hippy children.
Page 46–49: Marissa in a Hamburg, Germany, red light district. Meets MICHAEL ISAACS (40s) in a strip club. Flamboyantly dressed, we learn he’s a violent mercenary, and he’s familiar with Erik and Hanna. She hires him to find Hanna. He asks: “Did she turn out as you hoped?” Marissa: “Better.”
Page 49–50: Hanna has a weird dinner with the hippy family. (Going for some comic relief here; British variety.)
Page 51: Back in her basement room, Hanna reads her DNA report: “Interfering sequence present. Abnormal.”
Page 52: CUT TO ERIK on a rocky outcrop on the Swedish coast. He undresses, tucks his suit into a plastic bag, then into a rucksack he swings onto his back as he wades into the water.
Page 52: Back to Hanna, who breaks into the hippy family’s microbus van as it’s about to leave the hotel.
Page 53: More comic chit-chat with the dysfunctional hippy family, not-so-free spirits, as their van crosses a mountain range, arrives at a ferry terminal.
Page 54: Moroccan hotel as the mercenary Isaacs and his right hand teenage knifer, TITCH, grill the hotel operator about the girl. He shows them security footage of Hanna breaking into the minivan. Tells them the family usually catches the ferry. They then kill the clerk.
Page 55: On the ferry. We see Hanna hiding. See Isaacs and Titch arrive at the ferry dock too late. Isaacs calls ahead.
Page 55: Erik emerges from the water at a Danish dock. Two policemen approach him.
Page 56: MILES, one of the hippy kids, notices Hanna hiding in the van but doesn’t give her away. As the van passes a rest stop, we see RAZOR, another hit man connected to Isaacs, begin tailing the minivan on his motorcycle.
Page 56: Marissa and Lewis watch as the two Danish policemen’s bodies are pulled from the sea. Lewis has called Interpol. Marissa dresses him down, telling him to regain control of the storyline, and that “I’m the first and last person Erik Heller will see.”
Page 57: Spanish campsite. A mini tent city of thousands of Euro-campers. As Hanna sneaks out of her hiding place, Miles, the son of the hippy family, snaps pictures of her. Hanna dashes off through the tent city, clocked by Razor.
Page 57A-58: Hanna goes to the public bathroom, is quenching her thirst when SOPHIE, the daughter of the hippy family, spots her. Sophie convinces Hanna to meet two Spanish boys with her.
Pages 59–63: Omitted
Pages 64–66: Two scooters weave down a road, Hanna and Sophie hanging onto their drivers, the two Spanish boys. We see Isaac, Twitch and Razor speed past going the other way, heading for the campsite.
Pages 65–66: Gypsy camp, home of the two boys. Hanna and Sophie watch a Flamenco dancer as the boys share a hash pipe. Hanna is enthralled by a Flamenco dancer, as one of the gypsy boys puts the moves on her. Cut to behind a gypsy wagon, Hanna asks the boy if they are going to kiss. She recites the scientific details of kissing memorized from home schooling. Just as he’s about to kiss her, she flings him to the ground, ready to break his neck. Sophie intervenes. Hanna lets the boy live, telling him, “It was nice.”
Page 67–67A: Marissa searches an apartment. Finds a room with walls covered by news stories and photos related to Johanna’s murder, and other MISSING WOMEN. She finds cassette tapes, listens to Johanna explain in these “verbal letters” to her mother that the “American couple Erik and Marissa are very nice to her.” The apartment’s owner, Johanna’s mother, returns. Marissa asks if she’s seen Erik. We realize Johanna was hired to be a surrogate mother to Hanna. Marissa coldly executes Johanna’s mother.
Page 67–68: Isaac looks for Hanna. Doesn’t find her in Miles’ tent. Off away from the family, Hanna and Sophie share a sleeping bag and bond. Sophia becomes Hanna’s first official friend. Hanna tells her that bad people are after her, hoping to harm her. Together they try to decipher Hanna’s DNA report. Sophie gives Hanna a friendship bracelet. Hanna tells Sophie she’s going to Berlin, and Miles overhears this.
Page 70: Danish hotel. Erik is getting civilized with a hot shower. Afterwards, we see him reading a postcard sent by Hanna from the Morocco hotel: “Mission Accomplished.”
Page 71: Campgrounds. Hippy family having breakfast. The kids tell the folks about Hanna, just as she emerges from the woods, carrying two bloodied and skinned rabbits. Hanna drops them on the picnic table: “Breakfast.”
Page 72: As the hippy van rolls out of the campsite, Hanna stares out the window, sees Isaacs watching all the cars. He smiles back at her.
Page 73: Erik checks out of the Danish hotel. The clerk, who is sweet to Erik, then recognizes him as a possible suspect in the killing of the two policemen. Erik knows she’s recognized him but can’t bring himself to cover his tracks by killing her. He leaves. She lifts the phone and calls authorities.
Page 73–74: Chase through the Berlin train station and car park. Erik takes down four Danish agents, hearing in the process via one of their radios that Marissa Wiegler is still alive.
Page 75–75A: Hippy family van makes its way through France. Following it are Isaacs, Titch and Razor in a rental car, biding their time. Hanna spots the car, begins to worry.
Page 76: Cut back to Berlin. Marissa in her Berlin hotel bathroom, obsessively brushing her teeth. (This is a recurring visual for this character.) She turns on the tape recorder, starts listening to a tape of Johanna telling her mother how she sings to the child she’s carrying insider her, hoping it’s a girl. The hotel phone interrupts. Marissa answers. It’s Erik.
Page 77–79: Marissa texts Lewis to bring back-up to her hotel room as she talks to Erik on the phone. Lewis arrives, saying back-up will be right there. Knock on the door. Lewis thinks it’s his guys. It’s not. Erik kills Lewis in an instant. Fierce gun battle between Marissa and Erik. Marissa escapes out the hotel window.
Page 80–85: France, night, the mini-van stops next to a shipping container storage depot. Isaac’s car stops behind them. Hanna tells Sophie not to follow her and she bolts out of the mini-van into the container facility. Isaac, Titch and Razor chase her, almost nab her. Hanna escapes across the tops of the containers. Drops down, is about to get away when she sees Sophie HAS followed her and is in danger. Hanna kills Razor, Isaac shoots and hits Sophie. Hanna drags Sophie away, then sprints toward a scrap metal yard, dives into a canal. She boards a scrap barge motoring away.
Page 86A-D/90: Marissa interrogates individual members of the hippy family about Hanna and where she may be going. The parents are clueless, Sophie clams up to protect her friend, but Miles tells Marissa what he overheard Hanna tell Sophie: That Hanna’s going to the “Grimm’s house” in Berlin.
Page 91–93B: Hanna jumps off the barge, now in Berlin. Cut to an abandoned amusement park. Hanna slips through the fence into the surreal playground. She goes to the “Wilhelm Grimm’s House” — a “Fairytale theme ‘Fun House’ being slowly digested by nature.” She knocks on the door, and an old man in clown face opens the door. This is KNEPFLER. He knows Erik, tells Hanna he’s been waiting for her for a very long time. He gives her an envelope with new identity papers, passport and money.
Page 93B-93F: Isaac’s car and a second pulls up. It’s Isaac, Titch and Marissa. Knepfler sends Hanna upstairs, where she hides under a bed with “The Big Bad Wolf” dressed like Grandma in it. They tie up and beat Knepfler. We see a picture of him, Erik and Johanna together. He tells them that Erik is suppose to meet Hanna here tomorrow. Marissa goes upstairs to make a phone call to her boss, Walt. Listening under the bed, Hannah hears two surprising things during the call: that Erik is not her father, and that the woman making the call is the real Marissa Wiegler.
Page 94: Hanna flees down a fire escape. Heads out of the park just as we see Erik jump the fence into the park at another location. Erik approaches the house, surveils, sees Isaac and Titch and Marissa over a dead Knepfler. Erik sprints away.
Page 95: Berlin street, Internet cafe. Hanna enters, gets instruction on how to use the computers. She searches for “DNA Interfering Sequence” and learns it’s about intervention into a mother’s uterus during pregnancy. Searches “Erik Heller” and learns he is wanted in connection to Johanna’s death. Hanna looks up the address to Johanna’s mother’s apartment.
Page 96: Grimm’s House — Marissa gets a call, alerting her to the Internet searches. They head off: “to Grandmother’s house we go.”
Pages 97–100: Hanna at Katrin Zadek’s apartment block. She surveils the building, climbs in through a kitchen window.
Page 101–101B: The place has been ransacked. Hanna finds Katrin Zadek’s body. Discovers the room wallpapered with news clippings about Johanna. And is surprised by Erik. “Are you my father?” Erik insists that he IS her father because he raised her. Hanna reveals to him she knows her DNA is abnormal. Erik confesses she was born in a research facility in Poland, where her fertilized embryos were “improved” to create a reduced capacity for fear and pity, increased strength and heightened senses. “The perfect soldier.” Erik tells her he recruited twenty women, including Hanna’s mother, at an abortion clinic.
Page 101C-101D: Hanna accuses Erik of using her to kill a woman (Marissa) she doesn’t even know. They fight, close quarters combat. Highly emotional energy mixed with superb martial arts. The fight rolls outside, Erik pleading for peace, understanding. Marissa and Isaac speed into the scene via two cars. Erik dashes off to lead them away from Hanna.
Page 102–104: Isaac and Titch chase Erik into a narrow alley. Tight quarters fisticuffs and knives. Erik kills both, but is seriously wounded. Marissa appears, gun leveled at Erik, who can barely stand. There is the briefest exchange and we cut to Hanna, who hears the double-tap gunshots. We see Erik dead beside Isaac and Titch. Marissa gone.
Page 105–117B: Berlin, night. Traffic cameras scan the city for Hanna. She’s spotted, looking lost, wandering aimless in the urban jungle so different from the Finnish forest. Her location is relayed to Marissa.
Page 105–117C-117EA: Berlin Supermarket: Hanna wanders, disheveled, picking out random food. Stops at a deli counter, is offered a sandwich by the clerk. A helpful woman/Marissa comes up and engages her in small talk about the sandwich. (Hanna has never seen her face before.) They sit. Hanna confesses that she’s lost and all alone. But when Marissa uses Hanna’s name, she backs away in fear and escapes.
Page 105–117F-117G: Hanna returns to the Grimm house in the amusement park. Finds Knepfler hanging, dead. Everyone in her world is gone. She unties his body and expresses pity toward him — a first. “I’m sorry, Mr. Grimm.”
Page 105–117G-117H: Marissa shows up at Grimm’s house. Hanna grabs a crossbow from over Mr. Grimm’s fireplace and dashes into the amusement park. Marissa chases her into a roller coaster track and tunnel ride. Marissa corners here, raises her gun. They each shoot at the same moment, Marissa hitting Hanna in the side, Hanna hitting Marissa in the chest with an iron bolt fired by the crossbow.
Page 105–117I: A long tension-filled final dance between the two. It ends with Hanna kneeling over a dying Marissa. Hanna touches her tenderly, examining the bolt in Marissa’s chest, saying: “I just missed your heart.” Hanna then takes Marissa’s gun from her hand, stands over her and fires two bullets.
Page 105–117J-119: Hanna is back in the Finnish woodlands, at the cabin where she was raised by Erik. As we hear her in V.O., reading an encyclopedia entry about a past Earth extinction from asteroids, and nature’s inevitable recovery, we watch her pull on Erik’s oversized fur coat, head outside to hunt with the crossbow and frolic with a fox pup we met in Act 1. She smiles…again, her first.
THE END.
Writing Exercise: I encourage you to read the script, but short of that, if you’ve seen the movie, go through this scene-by-scene breakdown. What stands out to you about it from a structural standpoint?
If you’d like a PDF of the Hanna script scene-by-scene breakdown, go here.
Kudos to John Arends for doing the breakdown.
As background, you may read my October 2013 interview with screenwriter Seth Lochhead here.
To see 100+ screenplay scene-by-scene breakdowns, go here.