I’m sure my opinion will lose a lot of respect when I say this (lol like it has a lot to lose) … but this is now one of my ten favourite movies ever, and it damn near tops the bunch. There’s just so much in this movie that hits me in the places I want movies to hit me. The Dakota tea-cup ride scenes hit me in a really personal place so hard, that look on her face that’s just like, typical, one week early to ride, pulling the glasses down over her eyes so Brittany Murphy can’t see her tearing up; and later when they finally ride it, both of them working out years of frustration on the wheel and each other; and like, I guess I can’t deny that where I am in life right now makes the whole “grow up” theme resonate deeper too, Murphy’s response to somebody telling her, “But this isn’t you!” – “I can’t afford ‘me’ anymore …”.

I can understand why a lot of people will put this movie down before they even see it, and I can understand why not a lot of people will consider it anything more than a bit of fluff to pass the time – but I can’t understand how anyone could see it and say the amount of bad things that have been said about it … I mean, I can’t believe how I gave it only 3 stars on my first viewing, I can’t believe it didn’t get me in the way it got me today. And the finale … it just doesn’t get better than Dakota letting her hair down and leading a ballet troupe armed with electric guitars.

April 2nd, 2005:

I love how nearly all Dakota Fanning movies seem to have come from some kind of story meeting where someone goes, “Okay, she’s an amazing actress… but she’s 11… who’re we gonna put with her? I know, she’s gonna need some-one to look after her – she’s a kid, afterall… but who?” So we have a giant talking cat, a psychotic killer, a hitman, a mentally retarded man, and here, a spoiled bitch. I may just steal this system when I run dry of ideas for my own screenplays, lol…

Once again Brittany Murphy makes her character 800x more sympathetic than she probably deserves (see last year’s Little Black Book, which I loved), and once again Dakota Fanning steals the movie.

Watching it reminded me of last year’s Raising Helen. Boaz Yakin is an interesting director, lots of visual ideas à la Bronwyn Hughes (Forces of Nature, Harriet the Spy). There’s a neat continuing idea about the spinning tea-cup ride at Coney Island, one beautiful image where Dakota is just staring at it; and in the final ballet recital scene, loads of little ballerinas carrying electric guitars.