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BaftaBaby 
"Always entranced by cinema."
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 Posted - 10/25/2007 : 11:04:38
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Nancy Drew
Always a perverse child, when my schoolmates were in their pony and Nancy Drew phase I was teaching myself to write with my toes in case I ever lost both my hands, and trying to re-create those love scenes I'd just seen at the Rivoli movie theater, with me as Rita or Lauren or Ava and my pillow as Glenn Ford, Bogie, or Robert Mitchum.
Seeing Andrew Fleming's post-modern version of the neat teen sleuth mired in the amber of the 1950s, it doesn't look like I missed much.
I did appreciate Fleming's tongue-in-cheek melange of retro production design, and some very clever 1950's shoot-and-edit choices [e.g. a car chase where the music is the main element and the 'chase' is implied rather than seen], stirred into a 21st century LA high school post-Goth culture.
But that joke soon flattens into a tight-lipped smile, and, trouble is, there really aren't enough laughs to justify the conceit. The screening I saw was mostly populated by the film's target audience who groaned throughout and in the lobby afterward were talking about anything but the film. Never a good sign.
So style is the first problem. I suspect the feisty young heroine would have been better served by a more honest period setting. At least, then, her social non-conformism would have made more sense. The choice of keeping Nancy the way she was in the books but existing in today's world seems as arbitrary as having her emulate the modes and mores of the late Victorian era of Sherlock Holmes.
Nancy should be perceived by her peers as a nerdette not because of her neatness or multi-skills in academia, woodwork, or home economics, but because she presents a baffling combination of real intelligence and a focus for it - i.e. solving mysteries.
Which leads us to the second problem. The two cases we see her solve are so far removed from contemporary reality, as are her methods, that disbelief cannot be suspended that far. Again, this would have been more acceptable had Fleming kept the film within its own era.
An accompanying issue is Nancy's age. I think I recall correctly that in the original she was fifteen or sixteen. But the character needs to be able to drive, and the driving age in California was changed to 18, so we have a girl [Julia Roberts's 17-year-old niece Emma - and who's not a bad actress at all] who looks like she might just about be 14, playing 18. And that, too, adds to the incredibility of the character. At 15 her sleuthing seems impressive; at 18 her peers are dying in faraway wars.
There are story issues and pacing issues and performance issues. The latter include a rag-bag of styles - each one adequately delivered, but shoved together like laundry. What we don't get is a sense of coherence. In short the film just doesn't know what it's supposed to be.
But I cannot conclude without mentioning the assured and strangely adorable Josh Flitter as Corky. If you remember him from Big Momma's House 2, he's worth seeing here for his uncanny comic timing worthy of someone twice his age. I look forward to more from this little wow. Apparently he's currently filming Ace Ventura 2.
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Edited by - BaftaBaby on 10/25/2007 11:11:43 |
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ChocolateLady 
"500 Chocolate Delights"
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Posted - 10/25/2007 : 12:04:37
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quote:
Originally posted by BaftaBabe
Nancy Drew
Always a perverse child, when my schoolmates were in their pony and Nancy Drew phase I was teaching myself to write with my toes in case I ever lost both my hands, and trying to re-create those love scenes I'd just seen at the Rivoli movie theater, with me as Rita or Lauren or Ava and my pillow as Glenn Ford, Bogie, or Robert Mitchum.
Hehehe. I too never got into these books, so I'm glad that I won't be missing much if I don't see the film.
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MisterBadIdea 
"PLZ GET MILK, KTHXBYE"
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Posted - 10/25/2007 : 14:43:50
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| They already made an Ace Ventura 2. |
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Nancy Drew - prob'ly some spoilers
