Movie Review: 'Kit Kittredge' warms the heart with lessons of tough times past

"Kit Kittredge: An American Girl" will please girls who appreciate determined young heroines and lessons in U.S. social and economic history.

In other words, really cool girls.

Derived from the American Girl line of books and dolls, "Kit Kittredge" stars Abigail Breslin ("Little Miss Sunshine") as a Depression-era Cincinnati kid who discovers that a positive mind-set can keep people from ever feeling truly down and out.

Radiating intelligence, Breslin lets us see Kit's struggle to process the bad economic news around her. Troubled at first, she proves a trouper as the picture progresses.

The Depression has walloped the Kittredges' upper-middle-class neighborhood. One family has resorted to raising chickens and selling eggs to make ends meet.

Kit's family seems fine until her father (Chris O'Donnell) reveals that he has lost his car dealership to the bank. He heads to Chicago to find work, leaving his wife (Julia Ormond) to take in boarders to help scratch out the mortgage payments.

O'Donnell and Ormond exude great warmth, and they compose, with Breslin, a believable and sympathetic family unit. Listening patiently to their daughter's concerns, her parents gently encourage Kit to face facts.

There's no shame in doing what's necessary to survive, insists the mom, who is as softhearted as she is pragmatic. Even though money's scarce, Margaret Kittredge finds enough to pay a raga- muffin young pair (Max Thieriot and Willow Smith) to perform odd jobs around the house.

The kids live in a "hobo" camp that's a source of rumors among Cincinnati residents, who tend to attribute all criminal activity to these itinerant folks. A budding newspaper reporter, Kit sees the injustice of such stereotypes and writes a piece defending her homeless friends.

Though our current economic hard times pale next to the Great Depression, "Kit Kittredge" still resonates in a modern sense. The film urges young people to refrain from stigmatizing the less fortunate as it celebrates the good times that can persist under even the tightest financial constraints.

That these messages come from a film linked to a line of pricey dolls is ironic. But there's never an indication in "Kit Kittredge" of the picture being product-based. Instead, this G-rated film distinguishes itself via high production values and a first-rate cast.

Lending the film burnished tones that enhance the 1930s period feel, director Patricia Rozema populates "Kit Kittredge" with adult supporting actors as committed to their roles as Breslin is to hers.

Stanley Tucci brings droll humor and a sense of mischief to a magician who rents a room from the Kittredges. Glenne Headly lends an undercurrent of sadness to a once-highfalutin' boarder who has lost everything but insists on judging her housemates anyway.

Joan Cusack and Jane Krakowski are reliably wacky as the home's other residents, a mobile librarian and man-crazy dance instructor, respectively. Kit had to give up her room to accommodate the boarders, but the newcomers have enlivened the house considerably.

The film goes awry when what has been a study of desperation, resiliency and camaraderie turns into a mystery-adventure. Kit Kittredge, a character we've grown to admire over the course of the film, suddenly morphs into someone else entirely: Nancy Drew.

About the writer:

• Call Bee movie critic Carla Meyer, (916) 321-1118. Hear her discuss the week's movies at 4:40 p.m. on Fridays on NewsTalk 1530 (KFBK). Read her blog at www.sacbee.com/21q.