Alejandro Polanco in “Chop Shop” (2008)
Ramin Bahrani solidified his status as one of the most exciting chroniclers of the marginalized communities of America by following “Man Push Cart” with this devastatingly humane and energetic portrait. Something of a revelation for unfolding like a neo-realist expose of a poverty stricken foreign society yet taking place in the junkyards and scrap heaps of Queens, it’s all anchored by a riveting central performance from Polanco as Ale, the orphan trying to grift and graft a better life for himself and his sister. It can be a tough watch, but Polanco’s unsentimental portrayal of the resourceful Ale means it ultimately becomes uplifting: a film about the resilience and decency that children can sometimes find in themselves even when circumstances rob them of everything else.
Dakota Fanning in “I Am Sam” (2001)
Ok, so yes, I’m a little conflicted about including this movie. It’s as shameless a tear-jerker as ever required three hankies to sit through. And it boasts that egregious Sean Penn performance as the developmentally disabled Sam, attempting to hang on to custody of his daughter and teaching heartless lawyers, and indeed The System, a little something about life along the way. But the elder Fanning sister’s performance just can’t be denied — she’s only 6 or 7 but is totally convincing and almost frighteningly accomplished in the role of his precocious child. In more recent performances Fanning has developed a kind of faraway dreaminess, but here she seems totally engaged, and if she’s also so ridiculously angelic-looking that our powerful dislike of cute child actors almost comes into play, even our hard hearts are melted as she acts everyone, especially Penn who is Acting-acting, right off the screen.
Jamie Bell in “Billy Elliott” (2000)
With its afterlife as an enduringly popular Broadway show, and fiiting so neatly into the “Full Monty” mold of grim hardscrabble North of England lives being unexpectedly changed by menfolk embracing something less-than-masculine (“…with hilarious results!”) it’s easy to dismiss “Billy Elliot” today. But to do that is not only to deny the pleasures of Stephen Daldry‘s manipulative but effectively sweet film, it’s to overlook the remarkably touching performance by Jamie Bell as the boy ballerina. It’s not a “cool” role, after all, Bell doesn’t get to play a child hitman or an edgy rebel, but he invests Billy with such sincere sweetness that the film becomes affecting where it could easily be affected. Bell’s proven his worth subsequently in a variety of roles, but almost everything he’s done since mines the same innate sensitivity he showed in spades here, in his debut.
Hailee Steinfeld in “True Grit” (2010)
Considering their diverse and consistently excellent output, the Coen brothers have surprisingly little form in the juvenile performance stakes (though I’m tempted to included the kid who hula hoops with his neck in “The Hudsucker Proxy” just because.) Then again, maybe their trademark whipcrack dialogue doesn’t really sit easily in the mouths of kids. Which makes Steinfeld’s breakthrough performance here at just 13 years old, rolling the script’s arcane phrases round her mouth like a plug of tobacco, doubly impressive. As the serious-singleminded Mattie Ross, who commissions Rooster Cogburn (a grizzled-er-than-thou Jeff Bridges) to find the men who killed her father, Steinfeld delivers one of the strongest and most memorable child performances in recent memory, in part because it’s seemingly so unadorned (and so refreshingly un-sexualized). Mattie has stolidity beyond her years, but a no-bullshit impatience with the excuses of adults that very much shows her youth, and Steinfeld is perfectly sparky yet straightforward in what was undoubtedly a very challenging role.
Catinka Untaru in “The Fall” (2006)
Saving my personal favorite for last, this near-miraculous performance from the then 9-year old Untaru in Tarsem Singh‘s wildly undervalued “The Fall” is extraordinary for a few reasons. Not only was she very young, and in practically every scene of the film, Untaru also performs in English, which is not her first language throughout. But Singh makes a virtue of that, with the brokenness of her childish phrasing adding layers of charm to an already off-the-charts charming performance, that feels largely improvised (and kudos to Lee Pace in his best-ever role too, for creating such effortless-seeming naturalism in this central relationship). In fact, being as this is a Tarsem film, it’s sold on the splendor of the fantasy sequences and the rich visuals for which he is famous, but the scenes in the film’s “real” world, where little Alexandria sits by the wounded stuntman’s bed in a 1920s hospital and listens to his stories, are where the actual magic happens.
Honorable mentions
There are a few we feel more guilty than usual about not including, because, you know, kids. Byword for “child star” in the post-Macauley Culkin years, Haley Joel Osment gave a great performance in Spielberg‘s “A.I.” but his high watermark is still probably “The Sixth Sense,” which lies outside the time frame of this feature. Chloe Moretz got a mention above for her excellent turn in “Let Me In,” but could also have featured here as the fun, foulmouthed Hit Girl in “Kick-Ass.” At the other end of the scale, Leonard Proxauf and Leonie Beneschin were both uncannily, eerily immaculate in Michael Haneke‘s “The White Ribbon,” while Thomas Doret is a tremendous asset to the Dardenne brothers‘ “The Kid with the Bike.” Pearse Gagnon was perfectly cast as the little boy with the potentially terrible destiny in “Looper”; Onata Aprile beautifully unaffected as the sweet child of warring, neglectful parents in “What Maisie Knew“; Kara Hayward and Jared Gilman were genuinely touching amid the Wes Anderson artifice in “Moonrise Kingdom” and Cameron Bright was coolly unknowable in Jonathan Glazer‘s misunderstood “Birth.” Finally, both Ellar Coltrane and Lorelei Linklater were impressive in Richard Linklater‘s already beloved experiment in time “Boyhood,” but the nature of that film means they kind of need a whole new category. You almost certainly have other favorites not mentioned here, so do let us know about them in the comments.
