Never let it be said that the Fanning sisters are trying to slide by on cuteness alone.

Oh, they're cute all right, but they also are freakishly good actors. (Dakota freaks me out, period, but that's another matter.) At last year's Sundance Film Festival, a rape scene from Dakota's film Hounddog was so disturbing that the film still doesn't have a distributor. The scene itself was not graphic, but Fanning's performance was so powerful and convincing that conservative groups called for the arrest of Fanning's agent and mother.

This year was Elle's turn in a less-disturbing, but equally gripping, performance in Phoebe in Wonderland. Elle plays Phoebe, a nine-year-old girl whose wild imagination and obsession with Alice in Wonderland alienates her from classmates and gets her in trouble with teachers.

Sounds like a sweet little Disney-like film, right? But several things made me take another look. First and second, Felicity Huffman and Patricia Clarkson. What would you pay to be Elle Fanning in this next photo? … continue reading