It was just over a year ago that a big screen version of Nancy Drew arrived on the big screen. Nancy Drew is a character with plenty of story potential, but the movie turned out to be rather lame. Sure, it was bright and sunny, but it did feel all that smart. Where I hoped for a big screen Veronica Mars, I got a flick that was not "sure what it wanted to be". It was clearly set in the present, yet its main protagonist was stuck in the 1950's, sharing the tone of The Brady Bunch Movie. Now we have a film that shares some of the stylistic choices of Nancy Drew, yet has a much clearer focus on where it is set and what it wants to be. In the end, Kit Kittredge: An American Girl is a lot closer to what Nancy Drew was hoping to accomplish, plus it is a much more enjoyable movie.

One thing I did not know prior to seeing the movie was the source. I was not aware that the character was originally conceived as a doll. The American Girl line of dolls made their debut in 1986 and depicted young girls, aged 9-10, at significant historical points. Each doll has a selection of alternate outfits and stories. Oh yes, stories. Each doll had stories based around them that dealt with important issues of the corresponding era. Kit Kittredge centers on a girl living at the dawn of the Great Depression, and that is where the film picks up our intrepid youngster.

The year is 1934, the Depression is beginning to take a heavy toll on the Cincinnati town where Kit (Abigail Breslin) and her family lives. Kit has dreams of becoming a reporter, spending much of her time with a typewriter in her treehouse writing news articles based upon what she saw. This includes her neighbors selling eggs in an attempt to make ends meet, ultimately losing their home to bank foreclosure. This brings up concerns about her own family: "Will this happen to us? Will we lose our home?"

As the story progresses, we watch Kit as she travels to the newspaper office in an attempt to sell an article to the editor, Mr. Gibson (a scowl-wearing Wallace Shawn). Her attempts are unsuccessful, but does little to dampen her spirit. It actually had the opposite effect; the denial just drives her to succeed that much harder.

Along the way Kit adopts a homeless dog named Grace, and befriends a couple of hobos, Will (Max Thieriot) and his younger partner Countee (Willow Smith), much to the chagrin of the neighbors and the boarders in the Kittredge home.

Oh, you don't know about the boarders? Well, while Kit's father (Chris O'Donnell) has left for Chicago to look for work and help pay the mortgage, her mother (Julia Ormond) has turned their home into a boarding house, renting out space to a collection of colorful folks. Among them are a magician (Stanley Tucci), a dance instructor (Jane Krakowski), a mobile librarian who is a terrible driver (Joan Cusack), and others including a monkey at one point. Each of them add a little flavor to the film, helping show what the time period was like.