Phoebe in Wonderland

It's easy to go handle a movie about children badly. Either making them more childlike than they really are, or more cute, or even more adult. And I think there's a tendency to tone down the drama of the adults in the picture because children might see it and not understand.

Fortunately Phoebe has none of these problems, but delivers a touching and very believable story of a young girl coping with a difficult home life and finding out that she is different from other kids (I'll leave the details a surprise).

The cast is top notch. Felicity Huffman is fantastic as always, and Elle Fanning is, if possible, even more adorable than her sister. The writing and direction are great, miking fantasy and reality, adult drama and childlike confusion so that the entire thing has a wonderful flow. The story has some good twists, but this is very much a character driven movie, and the execution there is perfect.