The appeal of the faithfully tame new “Nancy Drew” feature film might be something of a mystery to many adults, even to now-grown-up fans of the original mid-century crime thriller book series. But it’s likely that tweens and their younger siblings in particular will be more clued in to the simple charms of today’s reworking of kid lit’s favorite girl detective.
As directed and co-written by Andrew Fleming, produced with cute costumes and modest adventure on par with family-friendly cable channel fare, it’s low on star power and story pizzazz while retaining the innocent tone and child-empowerment subtext of the source material. There are definitely more harmful corners of the multiplex in which to dump the offspring as the dog days heat up this summer.
The thin plot was invented expressively for the movie and not adapted from one of the books by author Mildred Wirt Benson (also known as Carolyn Keene). But it’s a good enough excuse to trot out that plucky character anachronism Nancy Drew. She’s played here by Emma Roberts, a minor TV icon to the kiddies who will be known best to adults as the niece of Julia Roberts.
She has her aunt’s lips if not her gargantuan big-screen charisma.
The picture’s gimmick is that Nancy still dresses and behaves like a proper naïve Midwestern gal from, say, the 1940s or ’50s — though she is indeed living in and solving cases in modern times. A retro role model for the ages, the brilliant amateur sleuth is the anti-Paris Hilton, if you will.
Her featured murder mystery here takes place duringan extended trip to Los Angeles, where the motherless Nancy and her dad, Carson Drew (Tate Donovan), rent the home of the late film star Dehlia Draycott (Laura Harring). She died under suspicious circumstances, of course!
Red herrings fly and bad guys get their comeuppance as Nancy gets to the bottom of the whodunit and helps a young woman (played by Rachael Leigh Cook) caught in the middle of it. And yet, in spite of the important work at hand, there’s still time for the sweet teen protagonist to chastely flirt with the boy from back home who adores her.
Nancy never, uh, drew me in as a kid, so I can’t say whether this vehicle ultimately does her justice. You’ll have to check it out yourself for that answer.
‘Nancy Drew’
3/5 stars
Starring: Emma Roberts, Rachael Leigh Cook, Tate Donovan
Director: Andrew Fleming
Rated PG for mild violence, thematic elements and brief language
