The Big Picture

• Dakota Fanning delivers a standout, coming-of-age performance in Steven Spielberg's War of the Worlds.
• Fanning's portrayal of Rachel showcased a loss of innocence in the face of terrifying events, highlighting the darker aspects of humanity.
• Fanning's role in War of the Worlds was a breakout moment, proving her ability to handle more mature and complex characters in future projects.

While he is a filmmaker best known for creating imaginative feats of spectacle, Steven Spielberg’s great strength has always been the creation of endearing characters. Spielberg has developed positive working relationships with industry veterans like Tom Hanks and Harrison Ford, but he’s also shown an incomparable ability to recognize up-and-coming talent. Between Christian Bale in Empire of the Sun and Gabrielle LaBelle in The Fabelmans, Spielberg has given child actors significant roles and allowed them to succeed. Spielberg’s 2005 remake of War of the Worlds features a dynamic child performance from Dakota Fanning.

Spielberg’s film was not the first adaptation of H.G. Wells’ acclaimed source material, as the 1953 adaptation was a commercial success in its time. However, Spielberg’s War of the Worlds was a much darker take on the material, featuring shocking moments of societal destruction that evoked the all-too recent horror of the 9/11 tragedy. While it’s a film that speaks to the larger collapse of human infrastructure in the wake of an outside threat, War of the Worlds tells a coming-of-age story about Fanning’s character.

2005’s ‘War of the Worlds’ Modernizes the Source Material

While previous adaptations of the novel featured a larger cast of characters, Spielberg’s War of the Worlds focuses on just one family’s experiences trying to survive the invasion of Martian forces. Fanning stars as the 10-year-old girl Rachel, who lives with her brother Robbie (Justin Chatwin) with their mother Mary Ann (Miranda Otto) in Brooklyn. Rachel and Robbie are forced to spend a weekend with their estranged father, Ray (Tom Cruise), whose efforts to be a meaningful part of their lives are few and far between. However, the emergence of extreme weather events forces the dysfunctional family unit to go on the run together. Rachel is forced to grow up very quickly when it becomes evident that the survival of the human race is at stake.

Although the film features some graphic moments of destruction, Fanning keeps the focus on Rachel’s reaction to the terror that surrounds her. Her understanding of the world is rather limited, and neither of her parents has made significant effort to expose her to life beyond her community. While getting to go on a road trip across the country would seemingly be an exciting experience for a child of her age, any of Rachel’s inherent enthusiasm is subverted by the traumatic circumstances of their adventure. She never gets to see the beauty of human civilization, as she’s forced to watch humanity's greatest achievements crumble all around her. Fanning expresses Rachel's horror in these traumatic moments while making it evident that she longs for a time in which she was less aware of what's happening.

Dakota Fanning Stands Out in ‘War of the Worlds'

The film features an uncharacteristically unlikeable performance from Cruise, who subverts expectations of his stardom by playing a neglectful and irresponsible father. While it’s among Cruise’s most underrated performances, War of the Worlds shifts its focus to Rachel (Fanning) once the invasion begins in full. Rachel learns that since her father is protecting her due to unforeseen circumstances, she must develop survival skills of her own. This loss of innocence comes across through Fanning slowly shedding Rachel’s childlike qualities. While at first she reacts to being ousted from her normal life with emphatic screams and complaints, she begins to shift to quiet contemplation as her circumstances become more dire.

Fanning is able to show Rachel’s loss of innocence, as she is constantly reminded that the world can be a cruel place, and that she is not “special.” Despite his initial promise to keep her safe, Robbie abandons Rachel, so he can take part in humanity’s defense force; when she and her father are offered help by the survivor Harlan Ogilvy (Tim Robbins), they steadily discover that his intentions are selfish. While the extraterrestrial invasion is terrifying in its own right, the darker revelation that Rachel makes is that mankind is not as compassionate as she had once assumed it to be. The presence of an outside threat does not inspire society to unify and join forces; rather, it only exacerbates the divisions that were already in place. It’s a dark and unusual coming-of-age narrative that takes a backseat to horrific spectacle.

Although many of the film’s best moments are quiet and contemplative, Fanning does a great job handling the physicality of War of the Worlds. Rachel is forced to be constantly moving and avoiding the destruction that surrounds her, and the majesty of Spielberg’s glorious computer-generated effects is only effective when there's a human face to react to it. Rachel’s life is put in critical danger in the third act when a tripod abducts and nearly kills her; it’s a heartbreaking sequence, as Fanning shows how this innocent child is forced to reckon with her mortality.

‘War of the Worlds’ Was a Breakout Role for Fanning

Although she had previously earned acclaim for her work in the underrated Sean Penn drama I Am Sam, Fanning’s performance in War of the Worlds was a breakout role. A subplot about a young child in the midst of an action-packed summer blockbuster could have easily been superfluous, but Fanning’s strong work justified the attention that War of the Worlds paid to the character. Within a film wrestling with complex ideas about both war and civil infrastructure, Fanning’s work managed to be one of War of the Worlds’ best attributes.

By proving herself worthy of working with industry veterans like Cruise and Spielberg, Fanning’s War of the Worlds performance signified that she could play more mature roles. She would later return to the coming-of-age genre with roles in Charlotte’s Web and The Secret Life of Bees, and would appear in another adaptation of acclaimed source material with her role as Marge Sherwood in Netflix’s acclaimed limited series Ripley.

War of the Worlds is streaming on Paramount Plus in the U.S.

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