Dakota Fanning
Hide and Seek (2005)CLASSIFICATION Freakishly Precocious
CHARACTER Emily, a motherless girl who conjures up an imaginary friend with homicidal tendencies
CHILD'S PLAY After Mom's suicide, Dad (Robert De Niro) moves with Emily to a remote woodland house. That's when the hostile ''Charlie'' starts making his presence felt. Is he real? Is he a ghost? Or is he a projection of Emily's emotionally disturbed mental state?
CHILLING MOMENT When a cop asks her what's in the picture she's drawing, Emily says, ''You. Dying.''
WHY SHE SCARES US Ever since her starring role opposite Sean Penn in I Am Sam (2001) at age 7, Fanning has seemed eerily like a little adult. But her dyed-brown locks and thousand-yard stare in this movie indicate a new level of unchildlike gravity.
WOULD PLAY WELL WITH... Anna Paquin in The Piano (1993); Julie Allred (as the JonBenet-like child star who grows up to be Bette Davis) in What Ever Happened to Baby Jane? (1962)
