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Dakota Fanning was on hand at the Village East Cinemas here in NYC last night for the premiere of her controversial new movie Hounddog. I gotta say, I was very surprised to see how much older Dakota looks these days, as is evident in these photos of her on the red carpet … can someone say, growth spurt?

Having lurched through a gantlet of Sundance jeers, recuts, and release delays, writer/director Deborah Kampmeier’s Hounddog—at least as far as the press notes indicate (urgently)—now exists as a version different from the one that met such derision. One imagines, however, that the song—both the hip-swiveler of the title and the Southern Gothic story of FUBAR families, innocence, and, yes, child rape that it brackets—remains more or less the same. Dakota Fanning plays 12-year-old Lewellen, and while the role will test the patience of even the staunchest survival-parable lovers, Fanning’s extraordinary poise finally trumps precocity. “I’m gonna kill my daddy one day,” she declares in the first scene, and why not? Played by David Morse, he’s an inconstant brute with a wardrobe full of wife-beaters, in case there was any doubt. The symbolism is as clobbering as the blows that send Lewellen’s maybe-mommy (Robin Wright Penn) reeling: Snakes abound, notably in a grotesque, crotch-slithering dream sequence. Shot in mellow green and gold, Hounddog manages an engaging summer sweetness in its early scenes, as Lewellen plots to obtain a ticket to a local Elvis concert, but in the wake of the inadvertent betrayal that leads to her now-notorious rape (a sequence that, ironically, seems to have lost the horrific impact it needs), the film turns listless. By the time Lewellen gets tutored in the white-girl blues by a band of magical Negroes, it has fulfilled its risible potential.

This movie review by the Village Voice does seem to imply that the controversial nature of the rape scene is now not only nullified a bit but is, sadly, the high point of the film. I, personally, have no interest in seeing this movie … but I am very taken with how much older Dakota looked at last night’s premiere. She’s not longer the cute little tot that the world fell in love with … nor is she the gangly-looking, heebie-jeebies teen smiling thru her braces. She has grown into a mature looking young girl … which is a little hard to process for me. I realize it’s unfair to want to lock child stars into the youthful cute kids that they used to be … so I am very much looking forward to seeing if Dakota Fanning can translate from a child star into a bona fide actress. I’m not sure if this movie is the right vehicle for her to do that … but mebbe one day.

[Photo credit: Splash News; Source]