In 2011, the thriller film Hanna gave us a new action hero to fall in love with: a teenage girl raised in isolation as an assassin. Saoirse Ronan played the titular character as she crosses Europe with her father to eliminate a CIA threat before they can get to her, but this forces her to contemplate her own strange upbringing as she is plunged into the modern world. Fortunately, this wouldn’t be the last time we see Hanna as Prime Video expanded on her story with a TV series adaptation of the same name in 2019, this time with Esmé Creed-Miles in the lead. While action is still a huge and memorable part of the series, what makes it so captivating is the lead character herself and her coming-of-age story.
‘Hanna’ Flips the Narrative of the Coming-of-Age Genre
As the title suggests, the ultimate draw of this TV series is the character of Hanna herself and how she navigates her world. The idea of someone being introduced to the social dynamics of the modern age and technology after living alone their entire lives isn’t a new one, with films like Tarzan or even Mean Girls. But Hanna is almost the antithesis of a coming-of-age tale, where, instead of becoming aware of the dangers and darkness in the people and systems around us (Hanna was specifically trained to deal with those threats, after all), it is community, laughter, and safety that she is enlightened to. The fact that she is coming to grips with the conveniences and bonds we often take for granted is what makes her story so captivating.
Collider Exclusive · Action Hero Quiz Which Action Hero Would Be Your Perfect Partner? Rambo · James Bond · Indiana Jones · John McClane · Ethan Hunt
Five legends. Five completely different ways of getting out alive — with style, with muscle, with charm, with luck, or with a plan so intricate it probably shouldn’t work. Ten questions will reveal which action hero was built to have your back.
🎖️Rambo
🍸James Bond
🏺Indiana Jones
🔧John McClane
🎭Ethan Hunt
01
You’re dropped into a dangerous situation with no warning. What do you need most from a partner? The first few seconds tell you everything about who belongs beside you.
02
You have to get somewhere dangerous, fast. How do you travel? How you get there is half the mission.
03
You’re pinned down and outnumbered. What does your ideal partner do? This is when you find out what someone is really made of.
04
The mission is paused. You have one evening to decompress. What does your partner suggest? Who someone is when the pressure drops is who they actually are.
05
How do you prefer your partner to communicate mid-mission? Good communication is the difference between partners and a liability.
06
Your enemy is powerful, well-resourced, and has the upper hand. How should your partner approach them? The approach to the enemy defines the partnership.
07
Things go badly wrong and you’re captured. What do you trust your partner to do? Who someone is when you need them most is the only thing that matters.
08
What does your ideal partner bring to the table that you couldn’t replace? A great partner fills the gap you didn’t know you had.
09
Every partnership has a cost. Which of these can you live with? No one comes without baggage. The question is whether you can carry it together.
10
It’s the final moment. Everything is on the line. What do you need from your partner right now? The last question is the most honest one.
Your Partner Has Been Assigned Your Perfect Partner Is…
Your answers have pointed to one action hero above all others. This is the person built to have your back — for better or considerably, spectacularly worse.
Rambo
Your partner doesn’t talk much, doesn’t need to, and will have assessed every threat in your immediate environment before you’ve finished your first sentence. John Rambo is not a man of plans or politics — he is a force of nature shaped by survival, loyalty, and a capacity for endurance that goes beyond anything training can produce. He will not leave you behind. He has never left anyone behind who deserved to come home. What you get with Rambo is the most capable, most quietly ferocious partner imaginable — one who has been through things that would have broken anyone else, and who chose to keep going anyway. You’ll never need to ask if he has your back. You’ll just know.
James Bond
Your partner will arrive perfectly dressed, perfectly briefed, and with a cover story so convincing it’ll take you a moment to remember what’s actually true. James Bond is the most professionally dangerous person in any room he enters — and the most disarmingly charming, which is the point. He operates in a world of layers, where nothing is what it appears and every advantage is used without apology. You’ll never be bored. You’ll occasionally be furious. But when it matters — when the mission is genuinely on the line and the margin for error has collapsed to nothing — Bond is exactly the partner you want. He has survived things that have no business being survivable. He does it with style. That is not nothing.
Indiana Jones
Your partner will know the history, the language, the cultural context, and exactly why the thing everyone else is ignoring is actually the most important thing in the room. Indiana Jones is brilliant, reckless, and occasionally impossible — but he is also one of the most resourceful, most genuinely knowledgeable partners you could find yourself beside. He approaches every situation with a scholar’s eye and a brawler’s instinct, which is an unusual combination and a remarkably effective one. He hates snakes and gets personally attached to objects of historical significance, both of which will slow you down at least once. It doesn’t matter. What Indy brings is irreplaceable — and the adventures you’ll have together will be the kind people write books about. Assuming you survive them.
John McClane
Your partner was not supposed to be here. He does not have the right equipment, the right information, or anything approaching the right odds. He has a sarcastic remark and an absolute refusal to accept that the situation is as bad as it looks. John McClane is the greatest accidental hero in the history of action cinema — a man whose superpower is stubbornness, whose contingency plan is improvisation, and whose capacity to absorb punishment and keep moving would be alarming if it weren’t so useful. He will complain the entire time. He will make it significantly more chaotic than it needed to be. And he will absolutely, unconditionally, without question come through when it counts. Yippee-ki-yay.
Ethan Hunt
Your partner has already run seventeen scenarios by the time you’ve finished reading the briefing, and the plan he’s settled on involves at least two things that should be physically impossible. Ethan Hunt operates at the absolute edge of human capability — technically, physically, and intellectually — and he brings the same relentless precision to protecting his partners that he brings to dismantling organisations that shouldn’t exist. He is not easy to know and he will never fully tell you everything. But he will carry the weight of the mission so completely, so absolutely, that your job is simply to trust him — and the remarkable thing is that trusting him always turns out to be the right call. The mission will be impossible. He will complete it anyway.
Each episode is paced deliberately, allowing each beat of her story to resonate while maintaining our attention through mesmerizing action sequences. When Hanna first meets Sophie (Rhianne Barreto), we watch heart-warming interactions of her making her first friend, staring wide-eyed at the variety of colors in a convenience store, and hesitantly asking what Snapchat is. All these small but authentic moments feel significant after witnessing her grey-scale life in the forest, turning everyday life into something more resonant. Amid these little gems of appreciation for normalcy are the rapidly paced sections of wicked violence, where Hanna’s skills are on full display and perfectly capable of dropping our jaws.
Creed-Miles takes the torch from Ronan in this series and becomes a compelling lead that guides us through Hanna’s growth. After a particularly seamless fight scene at a train station, there’s a heart-pounding moment where a horrified Sophie, who is witnessing this side of Hanna for the first time, calls out her name. Up until this point, Creed-Miles plays Hanna with a cold restraint, marking her as an assassin rather than a teenage girl, but here is the first time her mask cracks as she realizes just how uncanny her life really is. It’s a scene that cements Creed-Miles as a lead we would follow anywhere, especially through the rest of the three seasons as a character who can kill in a heartbeat but balks at the idea of sending a text message.
Joel Kinnaman and Mireille Enos Further Flesh Out ‘Hanna’s World
Hanna also offers the return of Joel Kinnaman and Mireille Enos, who were incredible screen partners in the Nordic noir series The Killing, but this time, they are on opposite sides of the playing field. Kinnaman is just as surly and dangerous as he needs to be as Hanna’s foster father, as he doggedly trains her in the snowy forests while offering his own quiet kind of compassion. Meanwhile, Enos plays a cold and ruthless antagonist, one who is trying to hunt Hanna down, and kicks off the critical espionage storyline in the show. Their roles in the story heighten the tension and stakes of Hanna’s coming-of-age journey, where grasping moments of normalcy and quietude feel like a fight for survival.
The show is beautifully balanced between adrenaline-fueled action and the almost whimsical appreciation of everyday life, where Hanna’s tough-as-nails and vulnerable character shines. It has a coming-of-age story that feels remarkably fresh, as instead of taking off the rose-tinted glasses, Hanna is putting them on for the first time while still being caught between wider, dangerous forces. She is all the reason you need to binge this show, a character who will win your heart with a wide-eyed gaze and a fatal right hook.
