-By David Noh
For movie details, please click here.
No one could really deny that little Phoebe (Elle Fanning) is a
problem child. Suffering from compulsive disorder, she blurts out
inappropriate things and does physical injury to herself. Her
frustrated, career-starved mother (Felicity Huffman), however, is
in major denial about her situation and, when Phoebe gets cast as
Alice in the school play of the Lewis Carroll classic she
coincidentally is writing a dissertation about, this is seen as a
healthful new focus for her daughter. Unfortunately, Phoebe’s
erratic behavior not only jeopardizes the production but also her
relationship with the one teacher (Patricia Clarkson), who sees
something special in this very different nine-year-old.
Fanning is the best reason to see this, giving an uncanny,
startlingly masterful performance. One can only wonder how much of
Phoebe’s dilemma this young actor really understands, but, on the
evidence of her acting, one could say that her knowledge is
comprehensive. The movie often has a rather turgid TV Movie of the
Week feel, but everything Fanning does is searingly believable. She
makes the torture Phoebe feels on a daily basis utterly believable,
and therefore truly tragic. It’s one of the great screen child
performances of all time.
The only other performer in the film to match her is Clarkson, who
has a preternatural, magical charm as the one who guides her little
charges into histrionic Wonderland. (You smile every time you see
her.) Her ineffable poise and otherworldly air are, indeed, right
out of Lewis Carroll and she joins the ranks of those special
teachers of films past: Mr. Chips, Miss Jean Brodie, Jaime
Escalante.
Barnz would have been wise to eschew the fantasy sequences which
have his actors playing characters out of
Alice in
Wonderland, replete with moth-eaten-looking costumes. After the
mesmerizing way this was done in the wonderful Gavin Miller-Dennis
Potter film,
Dreamchild, the effect is not only imitative
and wholly unnecessary – talk about over-egging the pudding - but
looks downright shoddy. Although his work with Fanning is
tremendous, he’s been less successful with Huffman (
very TV
movie), Pullman (phoning in yet another crinkly-faced,
nice-but-bewildered suburban Dad part) and, especially Campbell
Scott, who, as the school principal, tries to do something along
the whimsical lines of Clarkson, but falls into fake caricature.
Film Review: Phoebe in Wonderland
Elle Fanning gives one of the great child performances in this otherwise mixed study of a child with Tourette’s Syndrome.
March 3, 2009
-By David Noh
For movie details, please click here.
No one could really deny that little Phoebe (Elle Fanning) is a problem child. Suffering from compulsive disorder, she blurts out inappropriate things and does physical injury to herself. Her frustrated, career-starved mother (Felicity Huffman), however, is in major denial about her situation and, when Phoebe gets cast as Alice in the school play of the Lewis Carroll classic she coincidentally is writing a dissertation about, this is seen as a healthful new focus for her daughter. Unfortunately, Phoebe’s erratic behavior not only jeopardizes the production but also her relationship with the one teacher (Patricia Clarkson), who sees something special in this very different nine-year-old.
Fanning is the best reason to see this, giving an uncanny, startlingly masterful performance. One can only wonder how much of Phoebe’s dilemma this young actor really understands, but, on the evidence of her acting, one could say that her knowledge is comprehensive. The movie often has a rather turgid TV Movie of the Week feel, but everything Fanning does is searingly believable. She makes the torture Phoebe feels on a daily basis utterly believable, and therefore truly tragic. It’s one of the great screen child performances of all time.
The only other performer in the film to match her is Clarkson, who has a preternatural, magical charm as the one who guides her little charges into histrionic Wonderland. (You smile every time you see her.) Her ineffable poise and otherworldly air are, indeed, right out of Lewis Carroll and she joins the ranks of those special teachers of films past: Mr. Chips, Miss Jean Brodie, Jaime Escalante.
Barnz would have been wise to eschew the fantasy sequences which have his actors playing characters out of
Alice in Wonderland, replete with moth-eaten-looking costumes. After the mesmerizing way this was done in the wonderful Gavin Miller-Dennis Potter film,
Dreamchild, the effect is not only imitative and wholly unnecessary – talk about over-egging the pudding - but looks downright shoddy. Although his work with Fanning is tremendous, he’s been less successful with Huffman (
very TV movie), Pullman (phoning in yet another crinkly-faced, nice-but-bewildered suburban Dad part) and, especially Campbell Scott, who, as the school principal, tries to do something along the whimsical lines of Clarkson, but falls into fake caricature.
