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This family film is based on the American Girl toy line. That doesn’t seem very promising does it, but you’d be jumping to wrong conclusions. The popular dolls are based around stories and this one is brought to the screen with an old-fashioned charm. Patricia Rozema’s adaptation never gets cloy with its Great Depression era tale, dealing with the time period innocently, but honestly.

Kit Kittredge (Abigail Breslin, LITTLE MISS SUNSHINE) desperately wants to become of star reporter. Her father Jack (Chris O’Donnell, BATMAN & ROBIN) has just lost his car dealership and the bank is threatening to foreclose on their house. While he goes off to Chicago to find work, her mother Margaret (Julia Ormond, LEGENDS OF THE FALL) rents out their extra rooms to boarders. Mr. Berk (Stanley Tucci, THE LOVELY BONES) is a magician. Miss Dooley (Jane Krakowski, TV’s 30 ROCK) is a sexy dance instructor. Miss Bond (Joan Cusack, WORKING GIRL) is the flighty driver of a mobile library. Mrs. Howard (Glenne Headly, DICK TRACY), whose house was foreclosed on, moves in with her son Stirling Howard IV (Zach Mills, HOLLYWOODLAND), who defends Kit when boys at school pick on her for her family’s situation.

The town is buzzing over a string of muggings and robberies that are being attributed to hobos. This is a case for Kit. Through her investigations with her friend Ruthie (Madison Davenport, OVER THE HEDGE), she becomes friends with Will (Max Thieriot, 2007’s NANCY DREW) and Countee (Willow Smith, I AM LEGEND), two kids who live at the hobo jungle down by the river. Kit tries to sell a story about the camp to publisher Mr. Gibson (Wallace Shawn, THE PRINCESS BRIDE), but he has no interest in a kid reporter writing about hobos.

The drama deals honestly with the ramifications of the Great Depression on families. It’s a bit sanitized for smaller kids, but never makes it easy. With the current poor economic state of the world, this seems like the fitting tale to show kids dealing with the same issues.

The plot is one straight out of the Hardy Boys, but the characters feel fresh. Oscar-nominee Breslin brings the right kind of pluck that a junior reporter of the 1930s needs. But the world is a tough place and Kit isn’t immune to its difficulties. Breslin plays Kit’s later disillusionment with real sincerity. O’Donnell and Ormond make a compelling pair as her parents. Ormond carries herself as a woman with the weight of the world on her shoulders, but acts with a light grace and humanity. And of course one can count on quality comedic support from Tucci and Cusack.

The film takes Valerie Tripp’s Kit Kittredge stories and makes an engaging mystery/drama out of them. The who done it isn’t surprising, but the characters are. The impact of the crimes on the characters we care about drives the story. Kit is a fighter for the truth. Because the film is based around some hard truths, it takes on some weight. Kids in films are either stupid or geniuses. These kids seem just about right. It’s this truth that makes this film worth watching.

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