Fanning shines in 'Ginger and Rosa'

It’s a wonder that young star Elle Fanning is only 15 years old and so incalculably talented.

It’s an even greater wonder when you watch her embody one of the titular characters in Sally Potter’s “Ginger & Rosa.”

Fanning portrays 17-year-old Ginger, a role she shot when she was still 13. The age difference is all but unnoticeable. Both Ginger and her best friend Rosa, portrayed by Alice Englert with an exuberant aura to counter Fanning’s quiet power, are growing up in Cold War-era London. Ginger fears nuclear holocaust and her budding sexuality while Rosa endures an absent father and a distant mother.

Director Sally Potter writes and shoots intimate moments instead of staging ostentatious scenes. The two girls attempt to shrink their jeans in a cold tub while reading comic books. Ginger labors to keep her composure as her father commits unbearable acts in the next room. These are moments Potter makes you feel you’re intimately permitted to witness. There’s never a moment of exploitation or manipulation.

But as Ginger fears a bomb will implode in her physical world, an even larger threat manifests and implodes in her private world. Her struggle could have easily teetered into melodramatic territory, but it’s Fanning who balances the scales. She produces the meditation and intuition of an actress far beyond her years.

It’s on her shoulders that “Ginger & Rosa” becomes the poignant coming-of-age drama we didn’t realize we were missing.

By Dane McDonald