Hirp Review

Normally I only review movies I’ve seen in their entirety, and usually I won’t give a movie a good review if I dosed off during it. But hey, I’m all about breaking rules. It’s gettin’ crazy up in this mofo, ya’all. That’s what happens when Hirp watches a movie based on one of the American Girl Store dolls. And that’s what we started last night, Kitt Kittredge: An American Girl, one of the many gifts the Kyd has received for her 7th birthday. So she’s just 6 years away from being a teenager, and I won’t even be able to blame her teenage years for my hair loss.

The Kyd has had the American Girl Doll, Kitt, for a while now, and last year she and her mom read the book that tells the story of her doll. Seriously, each doll gets a book, and now those books are being turned into movies. In my world, that would be like every rapper getting a book and a movie about their life story. Oh wait, never mind. Back to Kitt Kitty Kitt.

The first thing I noticed, okay second, was the impressive cast they assembled. Julia Ormand, Chris O’Donnell, Joan Cusack, Stanley Tucci and Abigal Breslin. Abigal is the first thing I noticed, because my wife has always said how she looks so much like a younger version of ‘Chop’s wife, and it’s down right eerie how much she resembles her. Back to the cast, I realize this isn’t the cast of The Departed, but those are some pretty impressive names for a movie about a doll.

So we have a story about a girl in depression-era Ohio, and we catch a glimpse of the best of times and the worst of times, through the eyes of a sweet 10ish year old girl. We see her friends impacted by a tough economy. The rich friends hear from their dads how the hobo’s are all criminals and that we can’t allow the government to take our money and give it to the poor. Then her dad loses his job, and she grows close to being one of those “worthless” poor people herself. A real pick me up kinda movie when you work for a company that lays off people every other Thursday.

But that’s what I like about this movie; it has an element of reality that most movies for young girls lack. Rather then a storyline that centers around on either idiot parents or kids who hang out and we never even see or hear about their parents, we see parents who love and worry about their kids. And kids who love their parents, and are stressed by the drama of the adult world. It sparked a conversation with the Kyd about how there are families losing their houses today, just the way they did in the movie. I can’t imagine how scary that is for her to hear about, but seeing a character she can relate to, going through the same things, and coming out okay on the other end may give her some sort of comfort (man, I hope so) that her mom and I can’t with our reassurances. And it sure beats her hearing a story on the news about foreclosures and trying to explain it.

But yes, I dosed off for a few minutes early in the movie. It really wasn’t the movies fault, it was that damn couch. It made me do it. We paused the movie and will finish it off tonight, right after we watch the news about a certain local telecom company cutting jobs as their stock falls.