Nancy Drew, journaliste-détective

It is arguably the most controversial version of Nancy Drew by fans and critics alike. And why? The actors are all excellent, the problem is not there. While watching the film, the viewer actually feels like a feeling of unease, and it comes quite simply from the fact that screenwriters and director have constantly hesitated between making a film for "midinette" and a real detective film. Everything is there actually ...

"Nancy Drew" was the most accurate portrayal of Nancy Drew I have ever seen. Though it was set in modern times instead of the 50s like the book series, the storyline was incredible and the mystery suspenseful. Maggie Lawson was the perfect Nancy Drew, capturing the beloved heroine's thirst for mystery and her confidence, glamour, and intelligence. Nancy Drew's father was protective and loving. Bess and George were played perfectly, and the invented characters were a nice edition to the story. Unlike the Nancy Drew movie that stars Emma Roberts as a brunette (Hair color is usually not important, but Nancy Drew is an icon), fidgety Nany Drew, this movie showed who Nancy Drew really was, blonde hair and all, and was incredible for a TV movie. Nancy Drew's first year of college is one that I will not soon forget.

As feminist role model for young women, Nancy Drew can't be beat. She's eternally popular whether it's Bonita Granville in the Thirties, Pamela Sue Martin in the Seventies and now Maggie Lawson for the new millenia. Maggie is a worthy addition to her predecessors.

Nancy competes with men at their own game and shows them up quite frequently. She's intelligent, pretty, resourceful, who wouldn't want a girl like her or be threatened by her if the male ego wasn't too secure. Brett Cullen is her infinitely patient father Carson Drew who while he keeps cautioning her, really admires how his daughter has turned out.

Nancy's a little older now, she's in college as a journalism major, this generation's Nancy has grown up with tales of the exploits of Woodward and Bernstein and for one who's got a terminal case of snoopiness, this is the field for her.

When a star halfback on the school's football team has a stroke at the ripe old age of 20, her curiosity is more than piqued. She's got quite a scoop when it turns out he's been taking performance enhancing steroids. But is it illegal and if so, where does the blame lie?

Sabine Singh turns in a nice performance as the halfback's girl friend and Nick Stabile is around as Nancy's ever dependable friend Ned Nickerson. In keeping with the updating of these stories, Ned's a computer geek now and his expertise in hacking, helps Nancy get her story and nearly lands her in jail.

This version of Nancy Drew is nothing great, but it's every bit as good as the B picture product Warner Brothers did back in the day. And Nancy is still the best investigator around.

I was left utterly appalled to see what the scriptwriters and actors of this Disney film adaptation had done to Nancy Drew, the heroine in some of my favourite books through the latter years of primary school. Quite frankly, anyone who has read the books will find her character mutilated in this film.

This film sees eighteen-year-old Nancy Drew starting university with her best friends Bess and George when she is drawn into the mystery of how Jesse, an up-and-coming American football player, is left comatose. Her instincts telling her there is much more to the story than meets the eye, Nancy's investigations should lead her into trouble with the police and the university officials.

What was the premise for a film that could entice new readers to the books ended up just a mess and I could see intelligent young girls never wanting to see any more of Nancy Drew again after this. The tenacious, bright but modest Nancy from the novels had mutated into a egotistical, obnoxious, conceited snob who desperately needed to be taken down a peg or two before her head swelled too much. Clearly, the character had been dumbed down by a scriptwriter who assumed these were qualities young girls wanted to idolise. I lost count of the number of times people commented that Nancy had 'spunk' when all she really had was arrogance. And what was with the multi-million dollar bank account she clearly had access to (her car was not exactly what you'd see the average teen driving around) when what made Nancy so interesting was the fact she was a normal 'every' girl. Meanwhile, we had two air-headed bimbos in the form of Bess and George. Heath Freeman was completely miscast in the role of Patrick Daly, the detective heading the enquiry into Jesse's incident. He looked all of twenty-five yet we are meant to believe he ranks so high in the police force (if so, they must have ten-year-olds recruited as uniformed officers).

This film wasn't 'Nancy Drew of the twenty-first century', it was 'Nancy Drew, dumbed down' and it failed miserably as an adaptation. Hollywood scriptwriters need to go back to studying how to adapt young female characters and learn that there is no need to sex them up purely to appeal to kids as the original, more understated qualities of the characters in the novels were what made them so appealing in the first place. Those who want a more intelligent investigative film aimed at younger viewers should check out 'A Series of Unfortunate Events' or 'From the Mixed-Up Files of Mrs. Basil E. Frankweiler' instead.

I love Maggie Lawson on "Psych," and I love Nancy Drew, so I was interested to see this 2002 "Nancy Drew." My experiences with Nancy in the past include the books, of course, Bonita Granville in the films, and the Pamela Sue Martin TV series, which I don't remember at all.

In this incarnation, Nancy is in college with Bess and George. As a journalism major working on the school paper, she becomes interested in a football player who becomes comatose from taking ephedrine, and it's suspected that his girlfriend, a medical student, gave him the drug. Nancy sets out to find the truth.

Lawson is pretty, flirtatious, confident, and spunky. Is she Nancy from the books? No, and I wonder if today it's possible to even capture her. The times are different, for one thing. Unlike some other book characters, Nancy Drew was never considered a good character for the movies, which is why the character created by Bonita Granville was so different. The book Nancy was pretty, serious-minded, intelligent, courageous, wore "frocks" and went to "luncheon" with Bess and George. Granville was hyperkinetic and constantly dragging Ted (not Ned, the studio changed his name) into dangerous situations. She was always in trouble. There was no Bess and George.

Reading over the reviews on this site, it's interesting that some people have no familiarity with the films or the TV show. There was a complaint that Nancy is not a strawberry blonde here. At least she's blonde - she's been brunette in other incarnations. Someone else wrote that she must have had a million dollar bank account for a car like that. Nancy was always well-to-do - she never worked and she always had her own car. Someone else mentioned Nancy driving like a maniac. That undoubtedly comes from the Bonita Granville movies, which depicted Nancy as a reckless driver.

The Nancy character from this "Nancy Drew" is updated more from the films than the books, but it keeps all of the book characters, and they all use their book names.

Bottom line - if Nancy wasn't well-adapted from the 1930s books to 1930s films, there's no chance she's going to be well-adapted from the 1930s books to 21st century films or TV movies. As a regular story that has little relation to Nancy Drew, it's pleasant enough. Scarlett O'Hara, Mrs. Dewinter in Rebecca, Madame Bovary, Anna Karenina, etc. - none of these ever had to be updated; they were done in the period in which they were written. When a 2002 script doesn't even adapt an actual Nancy Drew story from one of the books, the task of creating a modern Nancy becomes impossible.