Ginger & Rosa (2012)

Elle Fanning is spectacular as Ginger in this wonderful coming of age story about two inseparable teens in 1962 London with the Cold War looming in the background. Fanning (last blogged in We Bought a Zoo) just turned 15 but this was shot at least a year ago. Alice Englert (the daughter of Australian director Jane Campion, Alice is new to me and is four years older than Fanning) is also quite good as brunette Rosa. Fanning's hair is expertly colored auburn for the picture to match that of Christina Hendricks (mentioned in Drive but best known as Joan on Mad Men), who plays her mother Natalie. Alessandro Nivola (mentioned in Coco Before Chanel and Howl, he is every bit as attractive here as he was in Laurel Canyon (2002) and Junebug (2005)) is Ginger's smoldering father Roland. All of the above fake their English accents and I found them fine. Timothy Spall (covered in Alice in Wonderland) gets to use his native British accent as kindly godfather Mark. Annette Bening (last in Ruby Sparks) and Oliver Platt (most recently in Love and Other Drugs) add color as visiting Yanks Bella and "Mark Two."

British director/writer Sally Potter has been around for a while but I never got around to seeing any of her other work.

The gorgeous camera work is by Robbie Ryan (Fish Tank) and, luckily for me, he uses a tripod most of the time, so no motion sickness. In fact, someone put a link on imdb of "sights and sounds" from this movie. It shows some stunning stills and a few of the following tracks from the glorious jazz tunes heard on the screen. When you go to that link, be sure to study the album cover for Thelonious Monk's Underground (or look at it here), which I happen to own on vinyl, and notice that the video for Take the A Train is set on a locomotive, because the filmmakers had no clue the song was about a NYC subway line from downtown to Harlem.

Soundtrack list:

L'il Darlin-written by Neal Hefti; performed by Count Basie

Pony Time-John Berry and Don Covay; Chubby Checker

Bird Gets the Worm, Take 1-Charlie Parker; Charlie Parker's All Stars

Fantasie, Franz Schubert; Vronsky & Babin

Tutti Frutti-Dorothy Labostrie, Joe Lubin, and Richard Penniman; Little Richard

Petite Fleur-Sidney Bechet; Sidney Bechet

Take the A Train-Billy Strayhorn; Duke Ellington and his Orchestra

I Don't Stand a Ghost of a Chance with You-Ned Washington, Bing Crosby and Victor Popular Young; Thelonious Monk

I'm Getting Sentimental Over You- Ned Washington and George Massman; Thelonious Monk

Take Five-Paul Desmond; Dave Brubeck Quartet

Apache-Jerry Lordan; The Shadows

Blue in Green-Miles Davis; Miles Davis

Body and Soul-John Green, Edward Heyman, Robert B. Sour and Frank Eyton; Django Reinhardt

All of Me-Gerald Marks and Seymour Simons; Les Paul

The Man I Love-George and Ira Gershwin; Christina Hendricks (she is apparently playing an accordion!)

The Man I Love-George and Ira Gershwin; Thelonious Monk

Rottentomatoes averages 80% from critics but a surprising 45 from audiences. I don't know what disappointed them, because I loved it, and Jack would have, too, had he been able to join me.