Harriet the Spy (1996)

This feature production from Nickelodeon is based on a popular kids' book from the 1960s by Louise Fitzhugh, and stars Michelle Trachtenberg as an 11-year-old wannabe journalist who writes all her observations about friends in a diary. When the book is stolen and read by her peers, she's ostracized. The film is hard to watch for all its sensory overload (rapid cuts, kooky camera angles), but its theme of finding a balance between a commitment to one's voice and one's obligations to others is fairly wise stuff. With Rosie O'Donnell and Eartha Kitt. --Tom Keogh Amazon.com

ok movie

ok for starters, the acting is not bad and I actually like how the scenes were shot, but I had some trouble with the plot/actions; girl likes to spy and write things down; she loses her notebook and her friends read all about themselves; she doesn't apologize to them; they are mean to her and she is mean right back; she doesn't explain any of this to her parents even when she gets brought home by a cop; finally at the end she does apologize and she gets her 2 best friends back; so as I wacthed this with my 7 and 9 yo I had to stop and ask them what she should have done; I will say it is better than the book as it takes even longer to have her finally do the right thing, but even then in the book she doesn't go up to her best friends and say she is sorry face to face March 20, 2008

harriet the spy the movie--

one of my favorite kids movie. It is movie that deals with children learning how to grow up and dealing with what life hands you. Harriet learns how to be loyal, deal with embarrassment, the loss of a friend. She also discovers that revenge isn't what it is all that it is cracked up to be. March 12, 2008

Harriet The Post Cold-War Spy

I first read HARRIET THE SPY in a Children's Literature course in college. I had been vaguely aware of the title for a while, but I don't think it ever would have occurred to me to read it. But I found it surprisingly good, with a fair amount of honest insight into childhood relationships, what it means to be a bit different, and some truths about growing up in an urban environment that made it a compelling read. I started recommending to other adult readers--especially those who (unlike me) had grown up in New York.

I seldom expect adult-level movies to be as good or better than the book, so I wasn't too surprised to find that the 1996 film version was, in many respects, lacking. This visually hyped-up version (you can tell this is a post-MTV product)is actually jarring. at times. And it drops(or virtually reduces to nothing) the book's many subplots. And would it have been SO terrible to actually set the film in the early 1960s, the era of the original's action? Of course, plots for "grown up" movies get updated too, and sometimes it works. But usually it's just an attempt to appeal to the "contemporary" audience and often violates the spirit of the original.

The notion that kids can't identify with children from other times and places is a pretty condescending one. And speaking of places, there seems to be little attemptin this film to capture any of the flavor of life in New York (in any era). Sure there are immigrant families, some urban eccentrics, and in fact, the film is much more racially and ethnically diverse than the novel But it could be Any City, USA. And while the notion of "spying" has a certain attraction for kids of any era, it had a special resonance in the Cold War years that would have been nice to see captured in the film somehow.

Having said all that, I would have to admit that--as some other reviewers mention--that this film will likely appeal to its target audience, contemporary pre-adolescents. A film doesn't have to be "truly great" to be entertaining, and that's true for any age level. And kids generally like to see their issues and concerns dramatized. The film makes its points about kindness and consideration vs. honesty and frankness well enough. In that sense, it really is good "family viewing," in that it can get parents and kids to discuss matters that concern almost any 11-year old.

But that's true of almost any "After School Special" or "very special episodes" of a given TV series. What really makes for great family viewing in my book is a film that is well scripted, acted and produced. It can be entertaining for kids AND adults. In fact, it should be as entertaining for adults who originally saw the film as kids. That's probably the ultimate test. Would a young adult of, say, 23 or 24 who saw this film when it was released 12 years ago, still enjoy it--or more than just a nostalgic level? I could be wrong, but I think any number of such viewers would come away from a viewing of this film today at least a LITTLE disappointed.

January 12, 2008

Better than the book, mostly

I am 43 and listened to the book on CD with my daughter. We then rented the movie. I somehow missed this book when I was a kid. Maybe our grade school librarian didn't like it?

Many reviewers complain about the movie dragging before getting to the real plot. Trust me, it's greatly condensing the interminable descriptions in the book of Harriet's spying victims.

I was grateful the movie eliminated the absolutely horrid stuff Harriet wrote in the school newspaper at the end of the book (for goodness sake, what school newspaper editor would let a kid write a column that was devoted to ragging on the stupidity of a neighborhood kid, complete with the kid's name??? Or an article where she admits she followed the teacher home to a "rathole of an apartment"???)

During most of the book I was asking myself "why aren't these idiot adults mediating in this fight?" - and of course that aspect is not changed in the movie. I also thought the resolutions in both the book and the movie were unbelievable. In the book Harriet's apology claims the mean writings were all lies - which wouldn't go over very well since these kids would know that what she was writing was true, at least in Harriet's own mind. At least in the movie that's changed to where she says the statements are either lies or mean. And why did nobody ever sit down with the other kids and ask THEM if they had never thought unkind things about other people?

I can't understand how this book got to be considered a classic. Maybe just because it was one of the few books at the time that portrayed a girl in a non-girly role. I sure hope better books have been written since.

There are some good things about the movie. One of the best aspects is that it could open up some good conversations with your kids. December 17, 2007

Awsome Movie

Harriet The Spy is a great movie and recomend it to every one :) October 9, 2007

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