There are two shots in Sofia Coppola’s Somewhere that tell you pretty much all you need to know about its characters, and the way that she’s decided to tell their story. Each one is about two minutes long and contains no action, focusing on their subjects in silent, motionless repose; the primary difference is that in one, Coppola pushes the camera slowly in, and in the other, she pulls away.

The first occurs early in the film, as Johnny Marco (Stephen Dorff), a movie star leading what appears to be a fairly shallow existence, goes to an effects studio to have a mold made of his head for a movie. The technicians slather him with the molding material, and then leave him to sit, and we’re left to watch him, alone and in the dark, as the frame slowly shrinks around him. Accompanied only by the sound of his breathing, there’s something sad and absurd about the image.

Later, poolside with his daughter Cleo (Elle Fanning) at L.A.’s Chateau Marmont, the residential hotel and notorious party spot where Johnny lives, Coppola frames the pair in close-up and backs away, as a sweet song by the band Phoenix lazily wafts in over the soundtrack. Where the head-molding sequence was cold and claustrophobic, this one is warm and open, a perfect, simple summer afternoon.