Making a movie based on an elite
line of dolls sounds like a cynical marketing tool, but say this about Kit
Kittredge, the scrappy li'l Depression-era reporter from Cincinnati: She stands
to do more to advance the hobo cause than anyone this side of John Hodgman.
After witnessing the silver-screen outing of the consumerist, cliquish Bratz
dolls, parents will probably be happy with young Kit, who exhibits compassion,
selflessness, and a prim, impeccable sense of style, even in a dress fashioned
from a chicken-feed sack. Trouble is, such noble qualities rarely make for
invigorating cinema, and Kit Kittredge: An American Girl languishes in G-rated earnestness,
content to promote decency while soft-pedaling the outside forces that
challenge it. It's all message, no tension.
What energy the film does muster is
owed mostly to Abigail Breslin's plucky turn as Kit, a 10-year-old girl whose
dreams of being a reporter are simultaneously inspired and short-circuited by
the onset of the Great Depression. When her father (Chris O'Donnell) loses his
job and has to leave town to find other work, Kit and her mother (Julia Ormond)
are forced to make ends meet by turning their two-story home into a boarding
house for other struggling citizens. The ever-gracious, adaptable Kit happily
gives up the space to a range of new boarders, including a klutzy librarian
(Joan Cusack), a glamorous would-be actress (Jane Krakowski), and a
professional magician (Stanley Tucci). When a couple of hobo kids are brought
in to do some work around the house, Kit gets the inside scoop on a series of
alleged hobo robberies sweeping the area.
It would be cynical to dismiss Kit
Kittredge as just
another product to be shelved alongside the $100 dolls and overpriced
accessories that line the American Girl store. Nevertheless, the brand must be
protected, and the filmmakers work hard to buff out any rough edges, which is
no small feat in a movie about sad, desperate, displaced people scraping their
way through the Depression. (Is it too late to make a line of dolls based on
Jesse Bradford's character in Steven Soderbergh's superior King Of The Hill?) By the time it reaches an action-packed
finale that's choreographed like an ancient Keystone Kops short, Kit
Kittredge has
cornered the market on bland.