FILM REVIEW: PHOEBE IN WONDERLAND

Phoebe (Ella Fanning) is confused by her different impulse.

Through a different looking glass

By John Esther


Dakota's younger sister, Elle Fanning plays the titular character who exhibits strange behavior everywhere in her young life except on the theater stage where her school is performing Alice in Wonderland under the guidance of Miss Dodger (Patricia Clarkson).

Her struggling writer of a mother (Felicity Huffman) cannot figure her daughter’s behavior. As mother and daughter attempt to cope with this strangeness, dad (Bill Pullman) and younger, smarter sister, Olivia (Bailee Madison, who has a natural gift for comedy), lash out in their own ways.

For every parent bewildered by their child’s behavior while insisting there be no shortcut answers, this imperfect film written and directed by Daniel Barnz overloaded with a terrible music score by Christophe Beck is for you.