Summer Eleven

It's the summer before middle school for Vanessa, Lizzie, Jess, and Peri-- four school friends--but that's not all they have to think about. Each girl faces her own challenge to tackle, challenges relatable to the audience, perhaps. All while staying together and soaking up the summer sun.

While the protagonists are 4 ten and eleven-year old girls, some of the issues that they face could be a little suggestive for younger children. Nevertheless, adults and older children will reminisce about their vacation days, and may find some traits in the girls to compare themselves to.

A low-budget film, but a fine one, in my opinion.

For what it is, it's perfect. It's not pretentious or sentimental or trying to be something it isn't. It makes no claim to be a film for kids as far as I can see, it's just a film about kids, facing real life situations, and managing them well. The adult players are integral to the story and there's a nice balance between the kids playing with other kids, and interacting with their far from perfect parents.

It scores high because it deals with happiness, sadness, success and grief in a realistic way, not getting bogged down with sentimentality or ramming 'important lessons' down our throats. I don't see why kids around the same age as the stars couldn't watch this, but as I said it certainly doesn't set out to be a film for kids. It's by no means hard-hitting, more quaint than edgy.

These four girls are all little stars and I'm surprised to see none of them have appeared in another movie. What their character show is is although we don't live in a perfect world, we can make our world perfect. Well done all of you :)

I just gave it a straight ten, this film totally surprised and charmed me. It completely avoids any cliché that seems to perpetuate in so many girls films. In this film girls are so refreshingly _not_ the little self - centered gigglers whose main and only subject are boys, and main plot is _not_ around petty fight that two of them had.

There are some deep and challenging events for kids at that age in the plot, and yet the movie is never a *drama*. It is represented the way kids handle it - just like you rarely see a kid just blocked - they accept and move on. It may appear light hearted, an it is in a way, but that is because it remains true to that particular perspective - kids cope with certain events, ups or downs, better than the adults do (obviously, not talking about extremes now).

Another point that I loved about the movie is that I have miserably failed whenever I thought that I had a particular character all figured out. I didn't. I loved the Valerie Mahaffey performance - brilliant. Girls as well.

I just finished watching Summer Eleven (2010). It is a family comedy/drama about four 11 year old girls who are best friends and their last summer before middle school. Even though I am not in the target demographic, I really enjoyed it. The girls are adorable and I was invested in their characters and their friendship. I think young girls would especially enjoy the film. My rating is an 8/10.

This is a great movie, especially for parents with elementary to middle school-aged children. As a cognitive neuroscientist and one who develops educational programs for parents, this move shows how adult behaviors and life experience affect children. And the real-life experiences among school-aged children. Overall, I loved it and recommend it.