Baby boomer mothers who take their daughters to the film expecting the classy heroine of their youth will find instead a 99-minute mockumentary of what Martha Stewart must have been like as a tweener. This character is Nancy Drew in name and convertible only. They began filming when actress Emma Roberts was still 14, and she was grounded by her mother for impudence the week before her publicity tour began.
What accounts for Nancy’s newfound youth? Perhaps Hollywood wanted to make her believable to a modern audience.
When Edward Stratemeyer invented the character in the 1930s, Nancy Drew followed the formula of the other books in his fiction factory: no touching, kissing or violence, according to Marvin Heiferman, co-author of “The Mysterious Case of Nancy Drew & The Hardy Boys,” which chronicles the series’ success. But when was the last time you saw a chaste 18-year-old in any Hollywood production? Quick, Nancy: Look 13.
In the books, Ned Nickerson, Nancy’s “special friend,” is a hunky college football player. Theirs is a chaste relationship; they dance sometimes and take strolls in the moonlight, but rarely do they even kiss. In the movie, there is no mention of college, and boyish Ned is little more than a sycophantic satellite for Nancy. They share one kiss, and it’s fleeting and sweet, in one of Mr. Fleming’s few nods to the original. But for a movie heroine to be sexually innocent these days, she can’t have graduated from ninth grade yet.
I saw it with my 11 year old grand-daughter and LOVED it!
It was SOOO good and SUCH a relief to see a movie with no swear words, no gratuitous sex, no violence (well, just a little), respect for parents. And the theater was FULL!
But they should have not named the character “Nancy Drew”. If they wanted to make a “Nancy Drew” movie, they needed to stick with the general tone and content of the books (known and loved by MILLIONS). If they just wanted a sweet movie about a smart little girl detective, they should have started from scratch.
I get so tired of going to movies ‘based on books’ only to find the only thing retained from said books are the names of the characters. Sometimes, they even change the gender (Whoopi Goldberg as Lawrence Block’s Burgler “Bernie Rhodenbarr”).
Even the authors are apparently getting tired of the trend:
*Tom Clancy won’t allow another of his books to be filmed.
*Clive Cussler vowed after “Raise the Titanic” that he wouldn’t let another of his movies be filmed, but relented when promised creative control over “Saraha”, then had to sued when that promise wasn’t kept.
At least we can count on the “Harry Potter” films, and it looks like “Narnia” will be keeping to the story as well.
But I will not be seeing Nancy Drew type parodies of the book source.