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Back in May, when I was looking over the many lists of
films for the coming summer movie season, Nancy
Drew did not make my must-see list. However,
after watching some of the trailers I realized that this was not my
grandmother’s teen sleuth but instead a postmodern take on the
seminal mystery character penned under the pseudonym “Carolyn
Keene” by a variety of writers. Director Andrew Fleming, who
co-authored the script with first-timer Tiffany Paulsen, does his best to
pay homage to Nancy’s roots while updating her for the 21st century,
and the results, for the most part, are entertaining. Unfortunately, the
mystery at the center of the movie is as hoary as the take on the detective
is entertaining.
Transplanted from her hometown of River Heights to
Hollywood by her father (Tate Donovan), Nancy Drew (Emma Roberts) does her
best to hold to her promise not to go sleuthing, but you just know from the
get-go that this is a pledge that was made to be broken. Sure enough, Nancy
catches wind of an unsolved crime right under her nose. Compounding this
small-town girl’s problems is the fact she’s having a hard time
fitting in at school. Penny loafers and plaid skirts just don’t cut
it in Hollywood. Although it is commendable that Fleming and Paulsen
would include many of the elements that Keene turned into mystery
conventions, the haunted mansions and secret passages come off as lazy
rather than as homage. It would have been much more fun seeing Nancy trying
to deal with not only the troubles of a modern school but an updated
mystery as well.
This article appears in Jun 7-13, 2007.
