Phoebe in Wonderland
The fantastical tale of a little girl who won't - or can't - follow the rules. Confounded by her clashes with the rule-obsessed world around her, Phoebe seeks enlightenment from her unconventional drama teacher, even as her brilliant but anguished mother looks to Phoebe herself for inspiration.
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- Cast:
- Elle Fanning , Felicity Huffman , Patricia Clarkson , Bill Pullman , Campbell Scott , Ian Colletti , Bailee Madison
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Reviews
I like the storyline of this show,it attract me so much
This is a small, humorous movie in some ways, but it has a huge heart. What a nice experience.
It's the kind of movie you'll want to see a second time with someone who hasn't seen it yet, to remember what it was like to watch it for the first time.
Exactly the movie you think it is, but not the movie you want it to be.
a charming puzzle. high performances. and admirable work of Elle Fanning. a film who remands the colors of childhood and, in same measure, the status of contemporary family. a film about refuges and the need of the other. fresh, amusing, melancholic, honest. about a girl and her strange world. about a teacher who gives more than inspiration. about a mother looking her role in her life. profound pledge for old fashion values, it is an open window to a magnificent definition of small things. and that fact does it special. because it is a trip in the heart of things with profound delicacy. a film about the sense of things. as child. as adult. as part of the others existence.
Elle Fanning was just.. I have no words. Why didn't she get any fame from this and yet she did for Somewhere, where she didn't do much? She was brilliant in Phoebe In Wonderland. She really made the film a whole lot better. At first I thought it was going to be boring but now I have changed my mind completely. If nobody has watched this yet, then I think you should. This isn't a kids film, which at first, I thought it was. The Trailer makes it look like It's about a girl who gets a role In an play, but actually there's more to it than meets the eye. I especially liked the part where Phoebe's mum noticed that Phoebe had been hurting herself, I actually got tears In my eyes.
Acting, directing, costumes, cinematography all splendid. Elle Fanning is a brilliant actress - such a delight to watch. Everyone was marvelous.The film is artistic, passionate, compassionate, REAL, heartfelt, intelligent, insightful... it skillfully brings the viewer into the life of a family struggling with a difficult and baffling problem. Why does a person in a loving family behave in ways that cause problems? Just STOP DOING IT. That's how it feels - the family members, school, and the person with the problem ALL want to know what the heck is going on. The film does a beautiful job showing this.I'm baffled to see all this talk about - and in the filmmaker's description apparently, Tourette's syndrome but not OCD. Absolutely baffled. Did the screenwriter not know he was creating a character with a pretty bad case of OCD? I'm completely flummoxed by this.In fact, the most obviously evident symptoms, very early in the film, were those of obsessive-compulsive disorder. I think the film did a SPLENDID job of showing the torments of OCD. It's an anxiety disorder that can be crippling. So many of her behaviors were textbook OCD. The things she had to do to be sure she got into the play - or to protect herself from bad things happening, the excessive hand washing. I don't know what was up with her knees - I must have missed that.The Tourette's was less prevalent in the film. It caused problems, that's for sure. But OCD is more prevalent in the film - it's the symptom we see the most of. Spitting is uncommon with Tourette's - thank goodness. And swearing is uncommon, as well, although people often thing that's the only symptom. Tics are small motor movements and sounds such as throat clearing, sniffing, coughing etc. are quite common. It's common to see blinking, shrugging, grimacing or mouth opening, kicking...I've been asked if I thought she was psychotic. If she literally was seeing and hearing those characters, then yes, there was a psychotic disorder. But psychosis is so rare in young children. She's so young - and I don't know if the filmmaker was depicting her fertile imagination, so it's impossible to say. Psychosis is not a symptom of Tourette's syndrome or obsessive-compulsive disorder. I love to see films that depict these sorts of problems and show the full complexity of the PERSON. I loved how the mother was angry at the doctor and refused to accept it. I loved how she accused him of not really caring, of wanting to just shove her daughter into a diagnostic box and medicate her instead of really being helpful. I loved that because I've sat in a room with that very same mom a number of times. A mom with ENORMOUS love and concern for her child - Felicity Huffman was brilliant. Bill Pullman was brilliant, as usual. Bailee Madison gave us a perfect little sister - a tough spot for a child to be in.Love the film. Is shows a REAL family with REAL struggles. It shows REAL parents trying to weave their way through the difficult and confusing waters of a troubled child. It shows a REAL child who doesn't understand what the hell is going on and is frustrated because she doesn't know how to articulate what she's experiencing.I don't hate the shrink; I often do in films. He's okay. Not great, but not horrible. I'm accustomed to shrinks in films being idiots. Or lechers. Ugh. I wasn't all that crazy about him, but he wasn't horrible. The way he handled his pad and pen... c'mon! You don't do that! It's a splendid way to SHUT IT DOWN. If that was the filmmaker's goal, it was spot-on. A sort of averageish or maybe a bit less than average - shrink. Good job with that.The high school principal was an idiot. I hope there isn't ONE like that in the world. Probably is. Sigh...This film is wonderful. I strongly recommend it to anyone... it should be shown in schools. It should be shown in homes. It should be shown in churches. It shows REAL people - parents with their own personal struggles and disappointments dealing with a difficult child and staying together, loving each other, accepting all their flaws and CHOOSING LOVE - choosing to stay together and live each day together - through struggles and through happy times. It is REAL.
"The books are a kind of Rorschach test, a screen onto which people project their own ideas" -Jenny Wolf, author of The Mystery of Lewis Carroll- It's no secret that I love the Alice books by Lewis Carrol - all two of them - and I agree with Jenny Wolf's assertion. These books are so loved because it's different for every reader. It's why there are so many movies, cartoons, series and stage versions (soon my own) of these books. Everyone has their favorite version or versions. In other words: Your interpretation says more about who you are rather than what the books are. For that fact alone is probably why I enjoyed Phoebe in Wonderland as much as I did. Phoebe - played by Elle Fanning (Dakota's little sister) - uses Wonderland as a device to explain what she doesn't understand in the world she inhabits. Then she really gets to escape to Wonderland when she gets cast as the lead in her school's production of Alice in Wonderland along with her male friend Jamie (Ian Coletti) who gets cast as The Queen of Hearts. What really drives this story home though is not Phoebe's tourettes or even when Jamie is called a fag (the movie was a GLAAD award nominee), but in the way that adults just don't understand what it's like to be a child.Patricia Clarkson (goddess) plays the drama teacher Miss Dodger (get it?) who seems to be the only one in the faculty that really knows how to nurture these children. The best scenes in the movie are the audition and rehearsal scenes for school play Alice in Wonderland, and I'm not just saying that because I can "borrow" their stage ideas. Miss Dodger takes these kids seriously and expects them to take her seriously and that's what children really need. Someone not condescending and someone who commands authority. She owns every scene she is in. The movie also has Bill Pullman and Felicity Huffman as Phoebe's parents. Felicity Huffman does what she does best, play the concerned mother, and Bill Pullman is pretty much Bill Pullman. Elle Fanning as Phoebe was phenomenal. People are going to call her a younger version of Dakota Fanning - and she is for obvious reasons - but she also has an acting style that is purely her own. She also gets to show off her singing voice in one of the cutest recreations of Looking Glass World's infamous "Welcome Queen Alice" scene. Directed by Daniel Barnz - who's directing the upcoming Beastly, a modern take on Beauty and the Beast with Mary Kate Olsen and Neil Patrick Harris among other famous faces - Phoebe in Wonderland is what it is: It's a movie about a little girl dealing with tourettes. The added layer of Wonderland is just a device and it never takes over the movie completely. It's complementary as opposed to distracting and really does help us to almost fully understand what's going on in this little girl's head as she deals with the frustration and confusion of her world. A world that neither she or the people around her can fully understand. I enjoyed this movie fully and plan to watch it again and again. It's beautifully filmed and very well acted, especially Elle Fanning and Patricia Clarkson. It's almost sad that it's theatrical release was limited. So go get it on DVD or Blu Ray or The Queen will have your head.Check out my Movie Blog:http://neonboy619.blogspot.com