Jena is a fantastic actor, a fact she proved right away with her first, rough movie Bastard out of Carolina at the age of ten. Of the three next films, Hidden in America and Hope we haven't seen, but the one between them, Contact, is right there among her better movies, despite her having a rather small role.

In Ellen Foster, Jena again plays an abused child, a role she perhaps does especially well – or perhaps the plentitude of such roles for her is more of a manifestation of a large part of all child roles being of that sort in general. Stepmom is a harmless divorce drama, and Jena handles competently her fair sized part.

Of Jena's later movies, Cheaters has impressed us especially much. A group of high school students is to attend an academic competition, and gets an opportunity to cheat. Jena plays an outgoing, headstrong teenager, and shows, in our admittedly biased eyes at least, a huge amount of personality and richness of emotion. Whereas many children change greatly both in appearance and mannerism when turning from children into adults, Jena never lost the distinguishing attributes she shows in Bastard out of Carolina, and in Cheaters that is especially evident.

Although Jena's role in Donnie Darko is small, that movie is too good and surreal to pass by without a mention. American Girl would be another Jena-in-teens movie you might like to check out.