Harriet the Spy

This is a good film. Michelle Trachtenberg makes a great Harriet the Spy. This movie is filled with comedy for the younger kids and is worth a look. I think this movie is underrated and it should have recieved more than it did. I read the book and from what I can remember, this movie resembles the book well. The

supporting cast including Rosie O'Donnell is great. The characterization is also well done including the characters Sport, Janie and the wise cracker Marion

Hawthorne. Harriet the Spy has a great mix of comedy, drama and tragedy. I

recommend this movie to any young one and if you've haven't read the book, I

would recommend you do or you might not understand this movie. *** out of ****

I first saw this movie when I was nine years old. I liked it for that time. I in fact tried to emulate Harriet and her friends. But those days are over now. What I am trying to say is don't say this is an awful movie because you found it dumb. Yes, some of it may be a little...juvenile. But remember, it WAS MADE for juveniles, not adults or anyone else but the age range of 8-12. If you are between the ages of eight and twelve, and you still hated it, then yes, it is understandable. But it is ridiculous for an adult to say that they hated this movie because it is 'too juvenile'. I think this movie has a great plot and a great message to young children. Be truthful to your friends, and you will succeed beyond your dreams. I also read the book, and this movie is quite close to the book, which is a good thing for a movie to be. In totality, this is a cute movie with a good message, and if you liked the movie, read the book too.

This little film has been roundly criticized for being disjointed and amateurish.

Well, it _is_ disjointed: part of it is surreal allegory, part realistic morality play. Part of it moves with a natural rhythm while other parts seem to have been transplanted from afternoon TeeVee. Some is done with a cartoon cosmology, and the rest is straight from Marlo Thomas' heart. Distributed throughout are mottles of bad acting and unconsidered dialog.

And I loved it all. Why?

Because this is in the tradition of movies and books that generate themselves. Rather, the characters in the stories play double duty as the authors of the story and the creators of the world that surrounds it. So it makes sense as precisely what a preteen would imagine her older self writing about her.

Indeed, the whole thing is a meditation on how someone might abstract the world (for writing) without a mature faculty for abstraction — which is to say how a kid would imagine an adult's mind imagining a kid's mind.

Its all about the deep problems of writing. I imagine the author of the original book sitting down and having trouble writing, them ruminating about why on the page.

Therefore, we have a youthful experimenter, a blocked writer, a "gardener" who makes environments from trash, another maker of environments (cages) who craves companionship, a woman who lives in a cage (Kitt), the Dad who is a movie comedian, together with lesser characters.

And the spy who spies so she can write what we see. It is all about sight and callow abstraction, just what movies were made for. Sure, it differs from the book because film can amplify what the book cannot. The adapter (the guy that did the game as life as game "Jumanji" project) understood this.

Ted's Evaluation -- 3 of 3: Worth watching.

with the possible exception of irvin kershner's 1966 adaptation of elliot baker's a fine madness, i don't i've seen a better translation of a book about writing into a film. sure we think of louise fitzhugh's harriet trilogy (harriet the spy, the long secret, and sport) as being about the the comic adventures of a little girl and her friends in nyc and they are; but the heart of harriet's writerly spirit comes shining through in bronwen hughes film of douglas petrie's fairly literal, and literate, adaption. there is a period update which makes some of the book's innocence play a little quaint and the kid movie necessary rapid edit kiddie silliness that saps some of the seriousness without actually attaining the levity it seeks; but by and large the film is worth taking any kid over 8 to and anyone who has ever seriously thought of writing, or even just felt a longing to express and accepted. PS the rosie odonnell billing is way over valued. Michelle Trachtenberg,as Harriet, more than ably carries the film, especially considering she was only 11 at the time.

Harriet M. Welsch (Michelle Trachtenberg) is a sixth grader with best friends Sport (Gregory Smith) and Janie Gibbs. Her nanny Golly (Rosie O'Donnell) drives her to write. She spies on her neighborhood writing it all down in her notebook. Marion Hawthorne (Charlotte Sullivan) is the class mean girl. Golly sees Harriet is old enough and leaves. Marion takes Harriet's notebook and starts reading it out loud to everybody. Even Sport and Janie turns on Harriet when her uncomplimentary private thoughts become public.

The movie is aggressively trying to be wacky. It comes off looking cheap. Director Bronwen Hughes in her feature debut struggles from time to time. Some parts of the movie is less compelling than others. Spying on the cat guy is fine but spying on Eartha Kitt takes up too much time in an important section of the movie. Then there is the heart of the movie. While I appreciate the attempt at a life lesson, it's a bit too muddy. I don't know if white lies are worthy of being the central lesson of the movie. I would also have preferred Sport go off on his own rather than joining Marion. It seems wrong for his character that has been created. Trachtenberg is a terrific child actress and gives a great performance. She keeps the movie moving.