Elle’s Teen Spirit
Max Minghella Helms Fanning's Pop Star Drama
Surprise! Max Minghella, the sexy chauffeur/boyfriend of Offred in Hulu‘s hit series, The Handmaid’s Tale, isn’t just a great actor. Turns out, the son of late British director Anthony Minghella, who wrote and helmed award-winning films like Truly, Madly, Deeply and The Talented Mr Ripley, also knows how to write and direct! For his debut film, Teen Spirit, Minghella creates a musical coming-of-age cautionary tale about a young woman who dreams of being the next Britney Spears. In the role of the pop star wannabe is the radiant Elle Fanning, fresh off her recent corset dramas Shelly and The Beguiled. Her damaged Violet is a small-town English girl who tries to escape her shattered family life by auditioning for a televised vocal competition called Teen Spirit.
Although Fanning has been singing in real life for a while now (check out her live performance of “Never Let You Down” with Woodkid and her take on Prince‘s “Kiss,” below), but this is her first movie musical. “The joke I kept saying on set was, ‘I’m just here because I wanted to sing,'” she said at the Toronto Film Festival, where the film debuted.
And sing she does, covering songs by pop heroes like Ellie Goulding, Katy Perry, Ariana Grande, Annie Lennox, and the amazing Robyn. Said Minghella of the musical choices, “I love pop music, I believe in pop music, it often gets made fun of but I think there’s a legitimate integrity to it. I chose ‘Dancing on My Own‘ by Robyn because it’s an iconic song and I wanted to use a song that we’d all danced to in our bedrooms.”
Fanning also performs the original song “Wildflowers” written by the adorable Carly Rae Jepsen and produced by the fabulously talented Jack Antonoff, who recently produced new albums by Lorde, Lana del Rey, St. Vincent and Taylor Swift. Can a debut album by the fair-voiced Fanning be far behind? We think not.
Teen Spirit opens soon.
