Nancy Drew and the Hidden Staircase

I watched this at home on BluRay from my public library. The CW network has a darker, young adult Nancy Drew weekly TV series so I watched this one to compare what is done with Nancy as a 16-yr-old vs a young adult.

In 1938 and 1939 four Nancy Drew movies were made, one of them had this same name. It involved a house that someone was trying to get the occupants, two old spinster sisters, to leave. Key to solving the mystery was a hidden staircase in the old house.

Cute freckled Sophia Lillis is Nancy Drew in this modern version. In the extras the actress herself calls this an origin story although that might not have been the intent. Her mother has died, she and her attorney dad move from Chicago to a fictional community, River Heights. There a company is trying to establish a railway line through the town and Nancy's dad is one of those fighting it for the sake of the community. That angers some who have a lot at stake financially and that causes the tension in the story. And a mystery for Nancy to solve.

So the story involves Nancy getting in trouble, enough so she has to do community service. In spite of that she still manages to work on solving the mystery and it does indeed involve the discovery of a hidden staircase in the home of an old grand aunt of one of her classmates. But the plot of this one is quite different from the 1939 movie of the same name.

Considering what it is, I found it to be suitably entertaining. At one point I was impressed that they actually broke into a lab and used chromatography to identify myristicin, a hallucinogenic chemical derived from nutmeg. The Nancy Drew of 1939 didn't have a skateboard, nor a cell phone, and didn't post things to social media. Nor did she have access to security video. A lot has changed in 80 years.

I've watched this version and the one with the same title from the thirties back to back. Originally it was in the service of my history of mysteries, but neither qualify. Only this one is worthy of comment, because of the apparent excellence of the demographic engineering.

So many films suppress the cinematic and narrative experiments in the service of cultural capture. For a student of film it is a trade off because in ordinary film, where the qualities of film are exploited and sometimes extended, we are happy to accept stereotypes, tropes and genre conformity. But when the project is about seduction of identity, the stereotypes are up for experimentation. All else in the media is in support.

It isn't just the marvellous creation of this Nancy. I predict this actress will have a rich and much admired career. I thought the same of and early Heath Ledger when I saw him in a King Arthur project with similar goals and values. She not just shines, she understands emotional manipulation.

She's what you are supposed to look at. She's what you are supposed to see, but the heavy engineering has been done around her, in place and gang. Sure, this is Scooby mixed with the old mean girl redemption story. But look closer at how the camera stages groups. Look at the apparently different sets of the same hidden passage.

There's craft in this that deserves to be understood. Disney used to have a stable of experts that knew how to do this before the TeeVee production ethic killed it. Maybe we'll get it back. Because in film, I appreciate experimentation and evolution in any dimension.

This is an enjoyable but often obvious and predictable film likely to be forgotten quickly. Sophia Lillis does a respectable job updating the character of Nancy Drew, and Linda Lavin elevates the entire film with every scene in which she appears. The rest of the cast is uneven. The haunted house manages to be creepy while still appropriate for young audiences. Both some of the teen girl empowerment material and the overall mystery frequently are handled with an obviousness some adults might find annoying.

The worst part is the script's dialogue and over the top scenarios. It felt like they filmed off the very first draft of the script without making it better or realistic. I know people in film school that wrote better scripts their first year! Very cheesy moments and cliche dialogue. BUT the actors do they're best (which is not easy!) and I applaud them for that. Because of the likable actors the movie is saved. All in all its a good movie for kids aged 6-12.

Young teens, that is. I wonder if young people read anymore, and if the ones that do ever read Nancy Drew books. Hard to tell if this movie will appeal to a large teen audience after "Captain Marvel" and numerous Batman films, but the story is good enough to hold the attention of kids who are not waiting for something to blow up.

Nutshell; Nancy is drawn into a mystery of a haunted house, owned by Linda Lavin. Aided by her 2 friends and a 'mean girl' they solve the problem, with a few object lessons about mean friends along the way. If you are over 21 the script is hard to endure but sufficient to hold the interest of a young audience. Nancy Drew as played by Sophia Lillis is adorable and appealing. I would recommend it to teens who are tired of superheroes, but with a caveat - it's not Fortnite.

7/10 - The website no longer prints my star rating.