Ramona et Beezus

Bien que le film, à l'instar des romans, s'adresse d'abord et avant tout à un jeune public, les personnages adultes y sont néanmoins crédibles et attachants. Cela étant, la distribution bien choisi fait merveille. Dans le rôle de la petite Ramona, Joey King se révèle aussi convaincante que craquante.

The film's greatest weakness is its attempt to jam far too many storylines into a 104 minute runtime. The film soon begins to feel episodic instead of like one continuous plot. This would be fine if executed well, but, instead, all of the vignettes seem to follow the same pattern.

L'héroïne a beaucoup d'imagination et elle n'hésite pas à s'évader dans ses rêves pour fuir la réalité, ce qui donne plusieurs situations cocasses. La mignonne Joey King, rafraîchissante au possible, nage comme un poisson dans l'eau dans cet univers doux et coquin.

Ramona and Beezus are undeniably cute, and the movie that bears their names tries to inject some timeliness, but what many of us will walk away from this movie thinking about are the hot father figures.

But as the episodic Ramona and Beezus gradually unfolds, we watch the sisters forge not only a truce but also an understanding of each other as young women negotiating their way through the thickets of childhood. Tenderness isn't a quality found much these days in the whirring-and-clanging busyness of family movies, which makes this G-rated gem's emphasis on emotion and heart all the more laudable.

Fronted by a well-cast Joey King as Ramona and a miscast but eminently marketable Selena Gomez as Beezus, the Fox release should become a sought-after theatrical/homevid title among families with young daughters, even though (or perhaps because) it's not the personal, distinctive portrait of misfit girlhood it could have been.

Parents may also be happy to see a movie for children that doesn't involve wizards, vampires or action figures that can be bought in the food court. They should be warned, though, that the price of contemporary realism is a story that includes layoffs, bickering and unpaid bills.