Family Films: Lizzie McGuire, Holes & What a Girl Wants

By Donna Schwartz Mills

A long, cold winter for family films has finally ended. Aside from the cute James Bond escapades of Agent Cody Banks, there hasn't been much good to write about in this column. We did catch the abysmal Kangaroo Jack, but thought better of telling you about it -- despite the marketing, this was not a movie that was right for kids (or anyone else with a brain). And Piglet's Big Movie was sweet -- but could very easily have gone straight to video.

But Springtime has brought us three family films - two for the girls and one that is so good, it's a shame it was produced by Disney... because it will be missed by lots of adults who don't have kids.

We'll let the ladies go first:

What a Girl Wants

• Studio: Warner Brothers
• MPAA Rating: PG - (for mild language)
• Mom Rating: 3 out of 5
• Kid Rating: 4 out of 5
• Cast: Amanda Bynes, Colin Firth, Kelly Preston, Eileen Atkins, Anna Chancellor, Jonathan Pryce
• Writers: Jenny Bicks, Elizabeth Chandler
• Director: Dennie Gordon

The Lizzie McGuire Movie

• Studio: Walt Disney Pictures
• MPAA Rating: PG - (for mild thematic elements)
• Mom Rating: 3 out of 5
• Kid Rating: 4 out of 5
• Cast: Hilary Duff, Adam Lamberg, Robert Carradine, Hallie Todd, Jake Thomas, Ashlie Brillault
• Writers: Ed Decter, Susan Estelle Jansen, John J. Strauss
• Director: Dennie Gordon

It's easy to lump these two films together, as they have so much in common:

(1) They provide the first leading lady roles for the biggest teenage stars on television, 10-year Nickelodeon veteran Amanda Bynes and the Disney Channel's Hilary Duff. Both are attractive, winsome and talented performers who are on the verge of major stardom;

(2) Both movies take place in Europe (Girl goes to London while Lizzie tours Rome), where our heroines take in gorgeous scenery from the back of a motorcycle belonging to the young men they meet there, and

(3) Both feature Cinderella-type storylines in which the girls get to try on lots of different fashions while papparazzi snap their pictures.

But there are some differences. For one thing, The Lizzie McGuire Movie is more of an extended episode of Disney's hit TV show, with the same cast and signature animated sequences, and a plot that helps transition the kids to their next stage as high school students... while What a Girl Wants is actually a remake of a 40-year-old Sandra Dee movie that was in turn based on a Broadway play called The Reluctant Debutante.

What a Girl Wants also features a cast that will be familiar to anyone who's a fan of hit British films of the last decade: Jonathan Pryce (The Affair of the Necklace), Eileen Atkins (Cold Comfort Farm), Anna Chancellor (Crush) and Colin Firth (Bridget Jones' Diary). Many of these actors have worked together before and work well enough here to lift the movie a bit above its fluffy premise of an American girl who travels to London to meet her father -- who happens to be an English Lord, complete with manor and houseservants. Firth's performance is even moving at times, as he conveys the feelings of a decent guy who would have been a part of his daughter's life -- if only he had known she existed.

And at least, when 17-year-old Amanda Bynes climbs on the back of her boyfriend's motorcycle, her father knows she's on a date. This is a problem in The Lizzie McGuire Movie, where the 15-year-old heroine, who is visiting Rome on a chaperoned educational trip with her class, pretends to have taken ill so she can sneak out for a private tour of the city with a boy she meets at the Trevi Fountain.

It is this "thematic" element that probably earned Lizzie its PG rating. Other than that, it's a pretty harmless tale of young Lizzie recruited to fill in for a missing Italian pop star who happens to look exactly like her. In the end, her ruse is found out, but as she is such a nice girl, all is forgiven.

The Disney folks know a star property when they see one, and seem to be putting all their marketing muscle into the Hilary Duff franchise at the expense of a superior film that is also now playing in theaters around the country:

Holes

• Studio: Walt Disney Pictures
• MPAA Rating: PG - (for violence, mild language and some thematic elements)
• Mom Rating: 5 out of 5
• Kid Rating: 3 out of 5
• Cast: Sigourney Weaver, Jon Voight, Tim Blake Nelson, Shia LaBeouf, Khleo Thomas, Jake M. Smith Writer: Louis Sachar
• Director: Andrew Davis

If the last two films were heavy on tween girl appeal, this one more than makes up for it with its setting in a juvenile detention camp for boys. Its young hero is Stanley Yelnats IV, who ends up in Camp Green Lake for a crime he didn't commit, thanks to an old family curse. He writes letters to his mom that make her think his life is like a summer camp. He doesn't tell her that the lake the camp is  named for dried up over a century before and that he and the other residents are forced to spend their days digging holes in the Texas desert. Their counselors tell them the activity is supposed to help them build character, but the warden has a secret and finding out what she's looking for is half the fun.

Louis Sachar wrote the adaptation of his 1999 novel, which won the National Book Award, the Newberry Medal, and "Best Book of the Year" from Publishers Weekly, The New York Times, and School Library Journal.

The screenplay is true to his book, and develops the story in a leisurely, non-linear fashion. Today's young audiences may find the film slow at first - there are no explosions, and little in the way of special effects... just a good story that meanders through three different centuries, with great characterizations.

Those characterizations begin with the boys at the camp, led by Shia LaBeouf as young Stanley and Khleo Thomas as Zero, a boy who is almost mystical in his ability to dig a 5-foot hole faster than any of the others and for some reason, will only communicate with Stanley. But the grown-ups really stand out, especially Jon Voight as the hardened camp worker who supervises the team and Sigourney Weaver as the even harder warden.

And there are lessons to be learned here - about keeping promises and staying true to yourself and your friends. There is also some violence, rooted in some ugly truths about this country's history. And  some scary scenes involving the poisonous lizards that share the desert with the boys at Camp Green Lake.

While I thought the scary scenes in Holes were a lot tamer than those in the two Harry Potter movies, my 7-year-old insists this one was a lot more frightening -- perhaps because Hogwarts is so obviously a fantasy place while Camp Green Lake is very much rooted in the world we live in. Some critics have suggested that this film is inappropriate for children under the age of 9. Parents should use their own judgment and knowledge of their children. All I can say is that if I had a choice between this movie and "Spiderman," which was a big hit with the kids in my daughter's kindergarten class, "Holes" is what I would choose - for both of us.

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