Letters to the Editor
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I won't see it, but not because it's bad.
I saw the preview, and I said to my husband "I can't believe they've never made a Nacy Drew movie before!" It's surprising, but somehow, I wish they had left Nancy Drew alone. I loved these books so much as a kid - I think I'd avoid the movie just because it might ruin the memory. It's not like Harry Potter - I liked the books and the movies - but I think that's because I read the books as an adult. Watching the movie didn't tamper with childhood memories. I'm sure the movie is good - I just don't want to see it. I'd rather keep my memory of "The Secret of the Old Clock".
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But they have
JennyCox,
In addition to two TV series, and some animated adventures, there were four or five Nancy Drew movies made in the '30s starring Bonita Granville.
I think it's great that Laura Harring is in this. After all, she was one of Lynch's two Nancy Drews in "Mulholland Dr."
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Younger than 16/18?
Perhaps Zacharek is thinking of Hollywood 16/18, which means late 20s. I'd easily believe those characters for that age.
I read Nancy Drew when I was very young, during that 2-year girlhood period of nonstop series reading (Babysitters' Club, then Nancy Drew, then Sweet Valley High...all before Madeleine L'Engle saved me). I had great fun at the time, and of course forgot all about them until I caught the first season of Veronica Mars.
What contrast! And what a time to bring it up, now that it seems Veronica Mars is gone forever. I don't know that I'd've enjoyed the show in first grade, but in my late teens I could immediately appreciate that this was everything I wanted but never quite found in a female fiction hero. This emboldened outcast who used disarming wit and almost casual brilliance to keep a hostile township in line?!
The Nancy Drew comparison was pretty natural; brilliant blond teen sleuths solve mysteries at a fairly predictable pace. But Nancy Drew was always effortlessly perfect; even the "corrected" Nancy Drew of my youth, the one with flaws and jealous friends, led a charmed life compared to Veronica. And even "modern" Nancy wouldn't be tough enough to do what Veronica did.
But I guess we're a nation for underdogs, because Zacharek's review suggests that perfect Nancy has undergone a sort of fall from grace just like Veronica did. I'll embrace the underdog cliche, and add a little "what doesn't kill you makes you stronger." By making Nancy a misfit, even if we don't perceive a huge difference in the presentation of the character, we get a big change of potential and backstory. Could this Nancy be tough? Frothy or no, I wouldn't mind an exploration; it's not like we have Veronica anymore.
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Isn't it supposed to be a mystery?
Nancy Drew is supposed to solve mysteries. I suppose that doesn't matter any more. Now it's all politics and sending the right message.
The books stood alone as mysteries. According to the New York Times, the movie is a complete and utter failure in that regard.
But then solving mysteries is hard. It takes real thinking, not just politically correct psychological growth.
And detective work involves separating what's true from what isn't true.
As we can see from recent news, thinking and separating fact from fiction are not skills that Americans are particularly good at these days.
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So what?...
So-- call it something else.
Or use the Nancy Drew books as a jumping off place, and write something "really" new about a girl who was influenced by them and gets into her own parallel adventures. [But that would require hiring a real screenwriter who writes original work-- and why do that when derivative work sells so well-- to the people with the money?]
But don't use the name and reputation and cachet of something that meant a lot to the readers who gave it that reputation... in order to write something that bears little relation to the original, except a passing avocation... and expect readers with more than a passing acquaintance with the orignals to give it their stamp of approval.
But I don't really expect much better... after all, they did much worse to Anne of Green Gables (in the later books/films) and to Mansfield Park (the worst, in my book, of the Austen adaptations, but I haven't even seen the newest P&P).
An important part of the Nancy Drew series was her relationship with her girlfriends, Bess and George... not one with a much younger, geeky boy. That might be an appropriate scenario for a "contemporary" girl detective, but it isn't really Nancy Drew, is it? Just a Nancy-wannabe. Too bad that these wannabe screenwriters get to practice on young people's literature, even if it is just a detective series. Now, their work will define Nancy Drew.
I thank the gods that no one in Hollywood seems to care about Cherry Ames!
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It might not be such a bad thing that they went for the nostalgia look
Otherwise people would just say it was a movie version of Veronica Mars. The nostalgia gimmick actually makes it sound kind of interesting. (not that I would throw down money to see it in the theater, mind you) If you think people are comparing it to Veronica Mars now, just imagine the comparison if they made her contemporary!
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Nancy Drew movies
I picked up one of the 1930's Nancy Drew movies at the pharmacy for a dollar. Fun stuff, but not Nancy Drew - this movie was a vehicle for a child singing star. If you can find it, try it, you'll only be out a dollar.
I'm pleased that they went with the retro look, because that was my experience of Nancy Drew too: flip hairstyle, petticoats, pumps - all the wonder and magic of that old-fashioned world. I liked Nancy for some of the same reasons I liked browsing in my grandmother's 1945 Emily Post. And Nancy's ethics were of a different time, too, when the heroine of a novel was expected to be not just physically brave but ethically brave. If the movie can capture that, all the better.
I'm saddened that the movie made no move to include Bess and George, replacing them, apparently, with male characters. just glancing at the picture before reading the article, I assumed the young boy in the back seat of the car was actually a girl - George. Now THAT would have been something, if a movie made for young people had the courage to have a butch character and not apologize for it. Several of the teen girls I know dress just like the kid in the picture, and one even calls herself by a boy's name - but I guess real life is still too controversial for Hollywood.