Mia Wasikowska, whose career was launched loud and clear in 2010 for playing Alice in Tim Burton’s Alice in Wonderland isn’t so much a person to watch as she is a person to follow. And by that I don’t mean follow her on Twitter but rather keep tabs. Her career is basically ongoing by now, it remains to be seen which roles she will be picking in the next few years and whether all her choices will be judicious ones.

I was home last night and watched That Evening Sun by Scott Teems (2009). Wasikowska plays Pamela, a normal teenaged daughter living in deep, rural Tennessee who befriends an unwanted neighbor. The film did not win any Oscar nominations (but it did win a lot of other accolades) but I was struck by the sincerity and simplicity of Wasikowska’s Pamela–a ray of sunshine all around. The Canberra, Australia-born actress was right on with her interpretation of a young woman caught between the unpredictable savagery of an alcoholic father and living out her adolescent years to their fullest–she excelled at doing the Southern drawl, too.

Wasikowska will appear next in Chan-Wook Park’s Stoker (slated for end of 2012) opposite fellow Aussie Nicole Kidman.