The young girls who take the major roles in this movie are cute. After that, the movie gets hyperkinetic and creepy. This may be in imitation of the books by Jim Benton. The overall effect is of an effort by people who have little idea of what kids actually want making a movie for kids, but the consumers are the adults around kids who also have no idea what kids want.
Although a few actual insights are tossed in, this movie portrays pre-teen girls as middle-aged women who see the world in bright colors and are overwhelmed by the senseless adult world in which they are expected to take full part. This argues terrible parenting these days and encourages people in the belief that if a child is hysterical, then the proper response is to acknowledge the hysteria as a perfectly normal and rational response. In other words, this movie encourages bad behavior in the name of self expression. How utterly bizarre.
When I was a child, I had confidence in the adults around me and understood that the world was more complicated than I -- as yet -- understood. This movie, by its structure, acknowledges the complications and mocks its subjects for not understanding those complications. It sends two conflicting messages: they are full partners, able to criticize accurately, yet they don't understood what is going on and should be mocked for that. It equates lack of information with stupidity. It's as if Chuck Jones had directed all those Road Runner cartoons and had claimed the audience was coyotes.
