Metacritic reviews

The film is upbeat, wholesome, chirpy, positive, sunny, cheerful, optimistic and squeaky-clean. It bears so little resemblance to the more complicated worlds of many members of its target audience (girls 4 to 11) that it may work as pure escapism.

Sunny, pleasant, squeaky-clean family film in which nothing surprising happens, and that is the point. Ms. Wood has a poise and wistfulness beyond her years, and she seems likely to follow the path of the child star Diane Lane into more nuanced adult roles.

A wholesome little drama aimed at the pre- and early-teen crowd.

Treu and screenwriter Jessica Barondes may not have their ears to the ground that's trod by real kids, but as they did with their previous film, "Wish Upon a Star," they're allowed to dream.

A teen-anxiety movie that leaves no doubt where it stands on "family values" and moral absolutes: It approves. The shock troops of the Cinema Without Limits army are unlikely to buy many tickets, but those who do will probably see the thing as sanctimonious pabulum -- even for its target audience of adolescents.

The kids in this syrupy family picture are spunky tykes and the adults are dolts, but Wood is worth watching because she's so clearly ready to play nobody's girl but her own.

Treu's sweet-spirited vision of life, and the winning performances of his ensemble of kid actors, gradually broke down most of my resistance.

The film's broad performances and heavy-handed moralizing strike a note of condescension sure to be heard by the alienated teenager within us all.

What you end up with are a bunch of kids acting not like kids, but how adults who've lost all sense of what it was like to be a kid think kids behave.

The film is dull going, even for the pre-adolescents at whom it's aimed, and feels far longer than it actually is.