Ramona & Beezus Review
Beverly Cleary's "Ramona" books, as well as her other series and standalones are about half a dozen chapters long. Each one is carefully detailed and paced - even if the event would seem minor to an adult - it's treated with the importance as a child of Ramona's age would view it.
In contrast, this movie pitches Cleary's plots to you like fastballs. For example, first Ramona gets a bad report card and curses (Ramona the Brave), then she makes a mess with toothpaste (Ramona and Her Mother), and then her dad brings home Gummi Bears for her and sister to share (Ramona and Her Father), and so on. There's also some fantasy sequences to emphasize Ramona's runaway imagination and to give the film even more of a child's eye-view perspective.
The overall plot is basically borrowed from "Ramona Forever," as Howie Kemp's annoying Uncle Hobart tries to (re) woo Ramona's Aunt Bea. There's also a storyline (Ramona and Her Father) about their dad losing his job (which caused an audible gasp in my audience). This isn't sugarcoated, although there's a happy ending for all the characters.
Joey King does an outstanding job as Ramona, as does Selena Gomez as Beezus (although physically, she's too glamorous for my idea of the character), and the rest of the cast is solid, too.
Adult-appropriate only material: Absolutely none, although if your kids know someone who's lost their job, they might ask questions about the bank repossessing their home. So be prepared.
Ramona & Beezus Overview
Teen sensation Selena Gomez (
Hannah Montana,Wizards of Waverly Place) teams up with newcomer Joey King in this delightful coming-of-age comedy based on the best-selling books by Beverly Cleary. Ramona (King) is a little girl with a very big imagination and a nose for mischief. Her playful antics keep everyone in her loving family on their toes, including her older sister Beezus (Gomez), who's just trying to survive her first year of high school. Through all the ups and downs of childhood, Ramona and Beezus learn that anything’s possible when you believe in yourself and rely on each other.
Ramona & Beezus Specifications
Beverly Cleary fans will love
Ramona and Beezus, a peppy, affectionately directed film based on the series of Cleary's children's books, starring the adorable, awkward Ramona Quimby.
Ramona and Beezus manages to appeal to three distinctly different audiences--tweens, because of its heroine, played with winsome agility by the adorable Joey King; teens, because of the presence of actress-singer Selena Gomez as Beezus (short for Beatrice), the hapless Ramona's older sister; and adults, because of the great casting of the girls' parents, Bridget Moynahan and especially John Corbett. There's also a romantic sub-story involving Ramona's Aunt Bea, played by Ginnifer Goodwin, and a neighbor, Hobart (Josh Duhamel). But the star of this film, as with the Cleary books, is Ramona, the imaginative, active, creative, and sometimes lost-in-her-own-world 9-year-old, whose best intentions have a funny way of nearly always going awry.
Ramona and Beezus is adapted from several of Cleary's books, and readers will recognize many of Ramona's escapades and mishaps. And perhaps surprisingly, they knit together to make a fine, cohesive family film--the cast interacts well together, especially King and Gomez, whose sisterly chemistry is adorable. There are several laugh-out-loud moments, including a really, really bad cooking incident, and the most creative accidental paint job ever perpetrated on a Jeep. But there's pathos too, and real family emotion, and there are a few teary scenes that make
Ramona and Beezus that much more endearing. My 10-year-old companion pronounced it "awesome," "believable," and "really, really funny, with good music." Beverly Cleary fans of all ages will agree. --
A.T. Hurley
*** Product Information and Prices Stored: Nov 03, 2010 18:30:05
