Patricia RozemaReseñas

Aspiring reporter Kit Kittredge can't resist bringing home strays, whether it's Grace, an abandoned basset hound, or Will and Countee, a pair of young hobos willing to trade work for meals. Bright, inquisitive and generous, Kit is a natural born leader. But her happy childhood is abruptly interrupted when her father loses his car dealership and must leave Cincinnati to look for work. Kit and her mother Margaret are left to manage on their own, growing vegetables, selling eggs and even taking in an assortment of boarders including an itinerant magician, a vivacious dance instructor on the prowl for a husband and a zany mobile librarian. When a crime spree sweeps Cincinnati, all signs point to the local 'hobo jungle, ' where Will and Countee live with a group of their impoverished companions. Kit, who always has her antennae out for a good news story, convinces her new friends to take her to see the hobo camp for herself and writes an article that creates a sympathetic portrait of the camp's residents. But when Kit's mother and their boarders become the latest victims in a string of robberies, Kit's loyalties are tested. Will is accused of the crimes and, with all of their savings gone, the Kittredges face losing their house to foreclosure. Determined to recover the stolen money and believing Will is innocent, Kit recruits her friends Ruthie and Stirling to help her track down the real culprit. Together they uncover a plot that goes far beyond Cincinnati!

This would be better described as inspired by the Jane Austen novel, as it is not a faithful adaptation of it. To keep length down it focuses on the central love story and the theme of slavery, to the exclusion of many other important aspects of this long novel. Harold Pinter is interesting as Sir Thomas and many parts are acted well. Frances O'Connor is witty, vivacious and sexy - ie, she is not Fanny Price.

Felicity An American Girl Adventure - In Colonial America, shortly before the American Revolution, a young girl tries to rescue a horse from an abusive owner.
Samantha An American Girl Holiday - Set in 1904, "American Girls" revolves around Samantha as she moves in with her grandmother and learns how to become a proper Victorian young lady.
Kit Kittredge An American Girl - Set in Cincinnati at the height of the Great Depression, Kit Kittredge, a resourceful young girl, helps her mother run a boardinghouse after her father loses his job.
Molly - Molly is a girl living in the year 1943 and WWII has brought many changes to Molly's life. An English girl comes to live with Molly's family to escape the bombings. They slowly become good friends.

Jane Austen is one of my favorite authors and I love many of the adaptations: I adore the Colin Firth Pride and Prejudice, the Emma Thompson Sense and Sensibility, the Gweneth Paltrow Emma and the 2007 Northanger Abbey with Geraldine James and Michael Judd in lead roles. This adaptation? Not so much.

Admittedly Mansfield Park is my least favorite of Austen's novels--I'm not alone in that--it's atypical in several ways. Ironically though, I found I couldn't forgive this because it was so unfaithful to the original. Maybe I would have liked it more had I never read the book? But the film tries to fix the rather meek and prim Fanny Price by injecting a lot of the young Jane Austen in her--making her have ambitions to write and giving her lines from letters and juvenalia. I just couldn't reconcile this witty and spirited version of Fanny with the original. And strangely, that rather reduced the point and courage of her sticking to her principles. (And the film takes another liberty in that regard that made me squirm.)

Filmen "Grey Gardens" er basert på en sann historie om moren og datteren Edith Ewing Bouvier og Edith Bouvier Beale - eller "Big Edie" og "Little Edie" som de også ble kalt. Little Edie var kusinen til Jackie Kennedy, og hun og moren var derfor en del av sosieten i sine velmaktsdager.

Historien veksler noe i tid, og i glimt får vi tilbakeblikk til kvinnenes storhetstid, der de opptrådte med sang og dans på familiegodset Grey Gardens. Begge vakre og flotte, alltid midtpunkt i selskapelighetene ...

Little Edie ville imidlertid noe mer med livet sitt enn å bo hjemme hos moren, og hun reiste derfor til New York for å bli skuespillerinne. I stedet forelsket hun seg hodestups i en høyt profilert kjendismann, som dessverre var gift. Da forholdet tok slutt, reiste hun hjem til sin mor for å komme til hektene. Men der ble hun, og kom seg ikke videre. Big Edies ektemann gikk til slutt lei av at hun hele tiden fylte huset med høylytte fester, og etter hvert skilte de lag. Big Edie nektet å gi opp Grey Gardens, selv om hun ikke hadde nok penger til vedlikeholdet.

Mor og datter bodde sammen på Grey Gardens, som etter hvert fremsto som en falleferdig rønne full av søppel og et utall katter som gjorde fra seg over alt. En dag ble de eksentriske kvinnene kontaktet av Albert og David Maysles, som ønsket å lage en dokumentar om kvinnene, og denne hadde premiere i 1976. Filmen het "Grey Gardens". I kjølevannet av all den oppmerksomhet som ble de to kvinnene til del i media, ble de kontaktet av Jackie Kennedy, som bestemte seg for å hjelpe dem med å sette den falleferdige rønna av et fordums gods i stand. Denne dokumentaren førte til slutt til at Little Edie fikk fart på karrieren som sangerinne.

Little Edie spilles av Drew Barrymore, mens Jessica Lange spiller Big Edie. Begge er fantastiske skuespillere, som gjør maksimalt ut av sine roller i denne filmen. Riktigere skuespillere for disse rollene kunne man knapt finne. Like fullt haltet denne filmen for meg. Kanskje var det historien som ikke fenget? En historie som helt klart gir mer dersom man har et forhold til de to damene filmen handler om - noe altså ikke jeg hadde. Jeg er heller ikke spesielt glad i synge-filmer, skjønt musikken i denne filmen var flott. Det var ikke det ... Jeg kjedet meg imidlertid fra begynnelse til slutt. Det må bli terningkast tre denne gangen.

Innspilt: 2009
Originaltittel: Grey Gardens
Nasjonalitet: USA
Genre: Drama
Skuespillere: Drew Barrymore (Little Edie), Jessica Lange (Big Edie), Jeanne Tripplehorn (Jackie Kennedy Onassis), Daniel Baldwin (Julius Krug)
Spilletid: 103 min.

At the height of the Great Depression in Cincinnati, Kit, a spunky 10 year old with ambitions of being a great reporter, faces hardship, prejudice, and theft. With her dad losing his job and facing foreclosure, he looks for work in Chicago. Kit and her mother take in a curious lot of boarders to make ends meet including a magician, a mobile librarian, a dance instructor, and an uptight woman and her son, Sterling. Kit moves into her tree house where she pledges faithfulness to her friends and types her stories. Along the way, Kit and her friends Ruthie and Sterling befriend two hobos, a young teen name Will and 5-year-old Countee. Trying to add to the family’s income, Kit writes stories about life in the hobo camps from a kid’s perspective. When thefts occur in the neighborhood and a lockbox with the household’s money and jewelry is stolen, almost everyone suspects Will. It’s up to Kit and her friends to investigate and find the real culprit. This story is based on the American Girl series by Valerie Tripp. The casting and acting are topnotch and stays true to the books’ storyline. Kit embodies characteristics that parents desire for their girls; determination, compassion, integrity, and intelligence. Highly recommended. Girls ages 8-12.

Nice DVD. Widescreen (1.66:1), double dub tracks: English, French (Dolby); subtitles: English, French. Commentary track: Rozema (in English only).

2008

The Great Depression hits home for 9 year old Kit Kittredge when her dad loses his business and leaves to find work. In order to keep their home, Kit and her mother must take in boarders = paying houseguests who turn out to be full of fascinating stories. When mother's lockbox containing all their money is stolen, Kit's new hobo friend Will is the prime suspect. Kit refuses to believe that Will would steal and her efforts to sniff out the real story get her and her friends into big trouble. 1 hr. 40 min. Rated G