About.com Rating

It’s always interesting to watch child stars grow up on screen. What will become of them? How odd it is that Claire Danes, an American representative of adolescent angst in My So Called Life and a luminescent Juliet in Baz Luhrman’s Romeo and Juliet, now plays a sharp and abrasive CIA agent in the cable series Homeland.

I thought of Danes while watching David Rosenthal’s new independent drama Janie Jones starring Abigail Breslin in the title role.

Abigail Breslin is growing up nicely. She got off to a big start in the independent comedy Review: Little Miss Sunshine (2006), beginning her career with nothing less than an Academy Award nomination. She has been appearing steadily in film sever since -- and doing lovely work. I was particularly impressed with her performance Kit Kittredge: An American Girl (2008) playing a wide -eyed girl who looks to undo injustice during the great depression.

Breslin is in possession of abundant charm, but knows how to give an understated performance. She can disappear into a role -- and that is what she does in Janie Jones. . Breslin stars as Janie, thirteen year old, a sad but resilient girl who turns to the guitar when she is feeling low. Her mother (Elisabeth Shue) is a drug addict. She takes her precocious daughter to a concert to meet the father she never met (Alessandro Nivolo) -- and then runs out on the girl. It is time for not entirely successful, drinking, cursing, self destructive rocker dad to step in.

And reluctantly, he does.

The premise is labored and so is the film. Janie moves into the tour bus and when the band falls apart, she makes a smooth transition to the used station wagon father buys for the journey. When her Dad picks bar fights at his shows in the small town, Janie picks up her guitar and sings.

Breslin does her own singing in the film. She is surprisingly good. She does not quite have the bad girl act down -- the random moments when she puffs on a cigarette, looking angry, did not convince. Her failed attempts not to cry, however, were entirely endearing. I am certain that Janie Jones will make a small ripple at the theaters, but I am not going to forget Breslin in this performance. I am going to watch her career on screen -- and it is going to be a good one.