Details about the movie at IMDb
I had to stop crying first to be able to write about this movie. At certain point I wasn’t able to stand it without tears.
Always when I am watching some movie, I am thinking about if it is worth writing about it on this blog or not. I think about how I feel about the movie, what I would write about, what rating I would give it etc. This movie caught my attention immediately. For first, I like Elle Fanning and her way of playing, and second, I read somewhere that the movie was about a girl with Tourette syndrome , which I read about in some magazine last week. That was kind of coincidence so I decided to watch the movie to see how such life looks like.
Basically the movie is about a little girl Phoebe who suddenly starts to act differently. At the beginning there are just small changes but in time they are getting more obvious and more often. Nor her nor her parents know what is happening. She starts doing and saying things that are improper and sometimes breaking rules, but she can’t help it and is confused. She also starts to run away from the real world, which is more and more stressful and alarming, to an imaginary world of fantasy, where the characters from the play Alice in Wonderland act and talk to her. The only place where she feels safe is in the school’s theater, where the kids are preparing a school play Alice in Wonderland, where she plays the main role of Alice, led by a drama teacher Miss Dodger.
The movie is showing the fight of Phoebe and people around her with the changes in her behavior and the different ways how they try to deal with it. Phoebe is trying to escape to the world of fantasy, the kids and her sister are angry with her, her parents are desperate, the principal is lost (it actually shows how inadequate people on important positions can be destructive)…only Miss Dodger is somehow able to make Phoebe calm and safe.
But what really made me cry was the moment when Phoebe found out what was happening with her and was explaining it to her classmates. I think it must be very hard for a kid admit that she is different and explain it to other kids. On the other side, they finally understood why she was doing those weird things and saying those weird words. Another thing is, if they decide to accept it and tolerate it or will use it as a apology for humiliation and mockery.
For me, the rating is 8/10
Pinky Kidney 