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.
\nWhat accounts for Nancy’s newfound youth? Perhaps Hollywood wanted to make her believable to a modern audience.<\/p>\n
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.<\/p>\n
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.<\/p>\n