Magic tricks

Last night I stayed up until 3:45 am watching episodes from the first season of HBO's In Treatment. The show chronicles a psychotherapist's sessions with several different clients. I got engrossed in the story of Sophie, a troubled sixteen-year-old gymnast.

Many elements of Sophie's narrative are common in adolescent dramas. She fights with her parents. She suffers from anorexia. She has a dark secret. What distinguishes Sophie's story, however, is the complexity of the actress who plays her, Mia Wasikowska. Wasikowska is an optical illusion. She can morph from a little girl into a jaded older woman with no discernible stops along the way. It is as though she changes costumes between shots, transforming herself while the camera idles on a distraction in the room. In a few rare instances you can see both child and adult at once, an ambiguous figure that baffles the senses.