Ginger & Rosa 2012

Mick LaSalle, San Francisco Chronicle: Sally Potter's twin interests - in grand world movements and in the grand internal movements in people lives - are effectively brought to bear in "Ginger & Rosa," her best film of the decade. Read more

Dana Stevens, Slate: Packs an impressive amount of personal and political history into a wispy 90 minutes of screen time. Read more

Glenn Kenny, MSN Movies: ... it's the way that Fanning and Englert animate their characters that makes the movie special. Read more

A.O. Scott, New York Times: Ms. Englert is as adept at blurring Rosa's feelings as Ms. Fanning is at clarifying Ginger's. Between them they illuminate an intimate, volatile cosmos. Read more

Joe Morgenstern, Wall Street Journal: Ms. Potter puts her heroines in a succession of interesting-and handsomely photographed-situations in which they define themselves by talking about what they're up to, rather than by taking urgent action. Read more

Moira MacDonald, Seattle Times: You sense that this pale, growing-up-too-fast girl at its center will one day be a poet; finding words to convey what she can't yet say. Read more

Noel Murray, AV Club: This is a movie about a young woman figuring out what her identity should be, set against a time of dramatic change. Read more

Bill Goodykoontz, Arizona Republic: Fanning is nearly perfect as Ginger navigates choppier waters than most teens have to. There is not a false note in her performance; no matter how melodramatic things become, everything about Ginger remains genuine. Read more

Ty Burr, Boston Globe: Elle's acting feels artless and naive, and all the more powerful for it. Fanning easily convinces you of Ginger's emotional reality - that every moment is the only moment. Read more

Ben Sachs, Chicago Reader: Like Terence Davies's work, this is less about storytelling than immersing viewers in the minute details of an era -- what one of the film's characters describes as "the poetry of confinement." Read more

Lisa Kennedy, Denver Post: What hurt, nuanced terror and exhilaration there is in Sally Potter's beautiful coming-of-age drama Ginger & Rosa. Read more

Tom Long, Detroit News: Fanning, so ethereal yet fragile in "Somewhere" and so instinctive in "Super 8," was actually younger than her character while filming this, but she brings so much combined innocence and authority to the role, it's never noticeable. Read more

Melissa Maerz, Entertainment Weekly: Teenagers do horrible things to each other in the name of their ''ideals.'' But adults do too, which is so much worse. Read more

Todd McCarthy, Hollywood Reporter: Elle Fanning mesmerizes as a burgeoning teen radical in 1962 London. Read more

Kenneth Turan, Los Angeles Times: Fanning displays a dazzling naturalness on camera, an ability to move persuasively between any number of emotions, from hesitant to sassy to distraught to anything else you can name. Read more

Stephen Whitty, Newark Star-Ledger: Don't damn it with faint praise by calling it Potter's most "accessible" film. Simply call it what it is: One of her best, and perhaps her most deeply felt. Read more

Bob Mondello, NPR: An intriguingly complex portrait of both of its characters and of the time of flux they live in. Read more

Sara Stewart, New York Post: There's not a bad performance in the bunch. Read more

Steven Rea, Philadelphia Inquirer: Elle Fanning is scary. Scarily good. Read more

Roger Ebert, Chicago Sun-Times: The film's tone is wonderfully maintained by Dakota Fanning's younger sister Elle as Ginger, convincingly playing 17 at the age of 13. Read more

Colin Covert, Minneapolis Star Tribune: A near-flawless film, beautifully shot and cut, excitingly performed and deeply felt. Read more

Joe Williams, St. Louis Post-Dispatch: Potter has a rich compositional eye, but she wisely trims the fat from the dialogue, which dances around most of the melodrama until an explosive last act. Read more

Rick Groen, Globe and Mail: Coming from anyone else, Ginger & Rosa would be a sensitive if predictable coming-of-age tale set in the mists of the distant past. But coming from writer-director Sally Potter, it's a major surprise. Read more

Linda Barnard, Toronto Star: In all respects, this is the completely captivating Fanning's picture. Read more

Cath Clarke, Time Out: It's let down by some earnest, patience-draining philosophising and poetry-reading. Read more

Joshua Rothkopf, Time Out: It's not quite enough for a film, but it is for one magnificent scene. Read more

Peter Debruge, Variety: Potter seems at a loss to communicate the ideas behind her agonizingly elliptical picture, leaving auds to marvel at the gorgeous cinematography and scarlet-red hair of its heroine, earnestly played by Elle Fanning in a project undeserving of her talents. Read more

Melissa Anderson, Village Voice: [Potter] here forgoes her earlier unconventional predilections for a simple, direct narrative. Read more

Ann Hornaday, Washington Post: In Potter's assured, caring hands, "the personal is political" assumes newfound breadth, depth and surprising emotional poignancy. Read more