Kurt here from Your Movie Buddy.
In W magazine's recently-released “Movie Issue” (which, as Nathaniel observed, was well worth that rare trip to the newsstand), the fashionable editors rather boldly offered not one, but two of their 25 Best Performance slots to the Family Fanning. I doubt I'd have done the same, but there's no denying it: precocious prodigies Dakota and Elle are the most naturally gifted young Hollywood siblings this side of the Smith residence.
Ch-ch-ch-ch-Cherie, Miss Cleo
In 2010, both sisters appeared in movies as little girls adrift, yet both tackled their roles with an authority that left just enough of their little-girl images behind them.
"Hello, Daddy...hello, Mom..."I personally would have loved to have seen Dakota Fanning get more year-end recognition for her turn as Cherie Currie in Floria Sigismondi's The Runaways, a movie that ultimately suffers from band-biopic fatigue, but is often kept afloat by a fiercely feminine POV (the first shot, you may remember, is of a drop of menstrual blood hitting the pavement – promising). Fanning is easily the highlight, putting an immensely watchable spin on the strung-out rocker cliché. Much of the delight of the performance is in that it's an evolutionary, not-a-girl-not-yet-a-woman turning point for the actress, whom we've watched almost since she was in diapers. That and it's a damn good performance. Did you see when she burst onto the stage and cranked out her rendition of “Cherry Bomb!?” It's among the more thrilling things I watched on screen this year, and the gravity of that statement isn't lost on me.
Elle gives herself a (well-deserved) handElle's work as young Cleo in Somewhere, another female-helmed picture (this time, of course, by Sofia Coppola), is of a far more subdued variety, but she, too, snags all the attention. Fully aware of how to portray a wholly plausible 11-year-old, yet boasting the unaffected, effortless instincts of a veteran, Elle offers what I felt this movie severely lacked. As a girl trying to gracefully deal with deadbeat parents, she scores your sympathy, whereas Stephen Dorff just gets redundant. She brings nuance and nonchalance, whereas Coppola and DP Harris Savides keep pounding you with pretentious and blatant metaphorical shots. Into the gaps of Coppola's thin blueprint of a script, she pours real spirit and humanity, whereas elsewhere in the movie both attributes are in short supply. Like her sister, Elle was born and bred for this business, and seems even ahead of her director in terms of knowing what her movie needs.
I think we can all safely say that lightning has indeed struck twice.
Agree? Disagree? What's your favorite Fanning performance?
Thursday, January 20, 2011 at 3:15PM 
