UPTOWN GIRLS

UPTOWN GIRLS (2003) It doesn’t seem possible that eight years have gone by since Dakota made this movie. Uptown Girls was the first movie Dakota made after becoming what you might call a bona fide movie star. It was the first movie she made that I waited for in anticipation, stood in line, and bought my ticket solely on the basis that it was a “Dakota Fanning movie.”
     My road to Dakota Fanning “fandom” was one fraught with happenstance, luck and fate. I saw my very first Dakota Fanning movie quite by accident, sometime in 2001. These were the days before Netflix and DVDs, on the weekends I would walk up to the local video store and rent a movie. By chance I picked up I am Sam (2001), a movie I rented on the basis of the strength of the two stars Sean Penn and Michelle Pfeiffer. A story about a retarded man and his struggle to retain custody of his six-year-old daughter. I remember enjoying the movie, at the time I distinctly remember thinking to myself, How absolutely utterly adorable the little Blonde girl was who played Lucy. Cute little girls come and go and I simply can not be preoccupied with every cute little girl that ever graced the screen. Needless to say this particular cute little girl was quickly forgotten. As was my custom back then, I lent the movie to my mother.    

     I never gave the movie or that little girl a second thought.  All that changed in the fall of 2002 when a  then fledgling Sci-Fi channel presented an original mini-series Taken, produced by Stephen Spielburg, something about alien abduction. I took no notice and didn’t even watch it.  That was until Mother said to me, “Have you been watching Taken?” I said no.  Mom said to me, “I think you should, you’ll like it,  I think you might be pleasantly surprised . . .” I didn’t know it at the time, but Mom wasn’t talking about the movie.  It must be the “Norman Bates” in me, but I set my VCR and dutifully recorded Taken and settled in to watch the movie. I was immediately captivated. Not just by the intriguing science fiction tale which was excellent, but what really caught my attention was the narration. There was this voice, a lilting sing-song Southern voice. It was the voice of a child, a voice that was familiar. At first I was baffled and the Sci-Fi network did nothing to untangle my intrigue. I had heard this voice before of that much I was convinced. But for the life of me I couldn’t figure out why I was so suddenly drawn into the narrative of this story by this unseen narrator. It wasn’t until episode seven, "Dropping the dishes,"  that I suddenly had a face to put to that voice. Remember the adorable little blonde girl from I am Sam?  It was of course Dakota Fanning, and I was at once completely captivated. Here was an eight-year-old girl who totally carried this made-for-TV movie. This was a fresh face, a new talent as sassy and precocious as Tatum O’Neal or Jodie Foster . . . I had waited twenty-five years to discover such a girl!  So believe me when I say,  I don’t make such comparisons lightly.
     Uptown girls, directed by Boaz Yakins, from a script by Allison Jacobs. Stars Brittany Murphy as Molly Gunn, the feckless freewheeling daughter of a deceased rock legend, who is forced to get a job after her manager steals all her money. Molly takes a job as nanny for precocious enfant terrible Ray (Dakota Fanning), the oft ignored daughter of a music executive. Molly inadvertently learns what it means to be an adult while teaching Ray how to be a child.

     Dakota was just nine-years-old back then and she reminds us of why we love her so much. She is super cute, with baby teeth intact. Precocious to a fault, a 29-year-old woman in the body of a nine-year-old. Dakota is a funny girl, a natural comic with a “rubber face,” and impeccable timing. She excels at the art of the dead-pan delivery, “Swinging door” was perhaps the funniest line in the whole movie. I wish Dakota made more comedies, she could easily be the next Lucille Ball.


Uptown Girls (2003) ** ½