Laura's screening with Laura Weaser

Hanna. Directed by Joe Wright. Out now on DVD/Blu-ray.

Frenetic cat-mouse chases, killer action and a thumping Chemical Brothers soundtrack – ‘Hanna' sends the viewer through an off-kilter world seen through the eyes of a young assassin.

Hiding from the big bad wolf.

Taking time out from directing classical, sweeping period dramas, Atonement/Pride and Prejudice's director Joe Wright steps up the pace, exploring the world of Hanna.

She is a young girl, brought up in the woods of Finland (never explicitly stated), and trained as a deadly weapon.

Expert in gun, knives, martial arts and languages, Hanna lives an isolated existence with her father Erik (Eric Bana).

But like all kids, she needs to grow up and leaving the house sets out on a cat and mouse chase with agent Marissa (Cate Blanchett) who desperately wants Erik and Hanna in her clutches.

This film can be best described as a complex layer of camera techniques, film genre allusions and fairy-tale references, layered over the relatively simple story.

The opening title card ‘Hanna' in big bold white letters, placed on a red background after she tells a dead deer ‘I just missed your heart', is very bizarre and European art film-esque.

Shaky-cameras track Hanna as she is running to escape the CIA's clutches.

Spinning the camera 360 degrees around as Hanna runs through a corridor while The Chemical Brothers thumps through the speakers harks back to one of their earlier dance videos.

Wright borrows a lot of techniques and allusions to other films, instead of carving his own niche as a first time action director – probably because up until this point filming women in corsets didn't require shaky camera.

This blend gives a real sense of discontinuity from the real world, the sense that something about Hanna's existence is not quite right.

It doesn't make sense at first, but the mystery unravels as we make our way through the world.

My favourite part of this film was The Brothers Grimm fairy-tale references, both explicit and subtle.

The main plot seemed to be a take on Little Red Riding Hood (LRRH) – the adolescent woman breaks from her sheltered childhood to live an adult life alone, only to be dragged into a race against the wicked witch figure trying to repress her back to her old life.

Set on the background of assassins, strange henchmen and CIA cover-ups.

References to fairy-tales include the slimy Swedish henchman referring to Hanna running to grandmothers house for safety only to find things aren't as they seem (LRRH), Hanna's saviour living in a mock Gingerbread house only to find it is not the safe-haven she first thought (Hansel and Gretel) and the final confrontation between the young woman and Marissa taking place in a wolf's mouth (LRRH).

It adds this layer of a surreal, unnatural world and makes for a really intriguing film.

With a lot of mystery embedded in the style and plot of this film, I still don't quite know what to make of it.

It was a strange one, but something marketed as a mainstream film that turned out to be a real surprise.

Reel Moments

The crowd pleaser – The Lovely Bone's Saoirse Ronan as Hanna. She plays her with the perfect balance of deadly assassin and fragile teenager.

The stage dive – The plot is complex, and I liked this, but it may leave some mainstream audiences expecting a straight forward action film to be bewildered.

Final curtain call? – Capped off by the brilliant purpose-written Chemical Brothers soundtrack, this disorientating, bizarre film takes the viewer on a dangerous fairy-tale ride through Europe.