Deborah Kampmeier’s quasi Carson McCullers coming-of-age tale, set in rural Alabama in the late Fifties, attained some small notoriety, too small to amount to a full-blown controversy, as the Dakota Fanning Rape Movie. That boils it down a bit too far. Needless to say, thirteen-year-old girls have been known to be raped, and filmmakers ought to retain the prerogative of putting that on screen, and thirteen-year-old actresses should not have to cede the role to Ellen Page or her equivalent. The deed itself, at the hands of a bad-complexioned older boy, could be said to be treated discreetly — neck-up framing, including the preludial nude dance — were it not for the gaudy symbolism of the impalement of the victim’s hand on a rusty nail. But there’s much more where that came from, both before and after. The show-me-your-thing flirtation with a lad her own age. The smooches on the lips. The Elvis-the-Pelvis gyrations in imitation of the heroine’s idol. (Fanning’s unaccompanied rock-and-rolling perhaps constitutes the greatest betrayal of trust on the part of her director: hanging the plucky actress out to dry.) The strategic soapsuds in the bathtub. The wet underwear at the swimming hole. The trying-on of a grownup’s bra over her clothes. The sharing of the screen with a stark-naked, albeit discreetly photographed, David Morse. And finally, the hallucinatory snakes slithering over her entire body, not missing her crotch. All of this, under the eye of a female filmmaker, is assuredly meant to arouse discomfort, and nothing more than discomfort. And the film would most charitably be seen as a significant step, an unmissable plateau, in the process of watching Dakota Fanning grow up before our eyes. Along with a little provocation, however, come a lot of backwater tedium and triteness (the fire-and-brimstone grandmother, the avuncular black man, the snotty rich girl) and a lot of jaundiced color (Ed Lachman, the normally capable cinematographer). With Piper Laurie and Robin Wright Penn. (2008) — Duncan Shepherd
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