"Ginger and Rosa" still. (Facebook)

“Ginger and Rosa” starring Australian actress Alice Englert, “Super 8’s” Elle Fanning, and Emmy nominee Christina Hendricks, centers around a teenage friendship in the turbulent times of 1960s England. Teens helpless at the imminent threat of a nuclear holocaust, red-haired Ginger (Fanning), and wild child Rosa (Englert) are best friends navigating through the sexual and cultural revolution of a nation.

The film follows the pair as they inevitably struggle with their coming of age in a society stuck between the rigidity of the midcentury and the bohemian freethinking of the newest generation, protesting in anti-war movements under the confusion of the Cuban Missile Crisis and toying with sexual experimentation. Natalie (Hendricks), plays Ginger’s mother, the epitome of the subservient housewife of the ‘40s and ‘50s, tiptoeing around her husband’s infidelity, keeping her suffering silent.

Sally Potter, famous for her indie low-budgets like “Rage,” and 1992’s “Orlando,” both wrote and directed the film, knowing the fear and confusion of a revolutionary generation first-hand. “Sally grew up in the 60s so she was our insight. She would tell us what the marches were actually like,” 14-year-old Fanning explained to the media.

“I loved this because it was a completely different idea of the 60s, this bohemian lifestyle of England,” Hendricks told reporters.  

Whether or not Potter’s brainchild will be a success remains to be seen. The film scored a 54% or 5.9/10 on Rotten Tomatoes, and the the UK-based The Guardian panned its believability:

“Her evocation of the period consistently strikes false notes, and the film has little of interest to say about the crucial changes taking place in early-60s Britain. The dialogue is flat, the staging inert, the performances uneasy and the accents of the imported American actors uncertain. A big disappointment.”

On the opposite end of the spectrum, Indiewire wrote, “Lovely and devastating, challenging yet worthwhile, Sally Potter's "Ginger & Rosa" may be the English filmmaker's best since "Orlando," and perhaps her most accessible to date. The intimate and sensual picture also features yet another terrific performance by 14-year-old Elle Fanning…”

Rounding out the fashions of the night, Hendricks, keeping to her old Hollywood bombshell image, was clad in a black sequin, square-neck, knee-length dress and matching headpiece. Fanning donned a bright green and white, chevron and horizontal striped Oscar de la Renta floor-length dress with a white headband pulling back her pin-straight locks while Englert went opposite her costar in a pink and black polka dotted floor-gazing dress and beachy waves.

Actor Stephen Dorff arrived on the carpet for the screening of his Palestinian-Israeli conflict film, “Zaytoun,” as the “Ginger and Rosa” talent exited, but not before embracing and posing for photos with Fanning, reunited after their costarring roles in the 2010’s “Somewhere.”

The film’s U.S. release date has yet to be announced.

Reach Staff Reporter Leah Harari here.