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 Her
name is Evan Rachel Wood; gaze upon this beautiful actress as I did in this
film. She was the only consolation to a film that could have otherwise been a
dud. Evan Rachel Wood presents the qualities of an adorable fifties-era young
beauty to an alluring Hollywood seductress with the acting abilities and
charming persona of Audrey Hepburn. Wood who made her critically acclaimed mark
on the film industry in the much talked about landmark independent film
"Thirteen", and in Ron Howard's western epic "The Missing", suffice to say, it's
obvious I've become quite smitten with this beauty, but how could I not? Though
the film is adequate in its own nature, Evan Rachel Wood manages to steal the
film from the rest of the cast through her natural and charming acting abilities
that help create her difficult character.
The film centers around
the character of Emily Lindstrom who is quite a complicated character. She
charges kids in the neighborhood half a dollar to tell her their secrets and to
give her something to hide for them. It could be anything; pieces of a broken
vase, stolen money, or even a broken chess piece which is the case with her
friend Philip, the new kid on the block. She hides things and keeps secrets for
kids because she herself has a secret that she prefers to keep from everyone, so
the secrets she hides for other kids are compensating for the secret she has.
She's a rather musical persona during the course of the story often passionately
playing on her violin which is an element to her that helps express her
personality very well. The story has some good moments during the climax of the
film when Rachel Wood's character who suffers from a tragedy while mother begins
to give birth to a baby. It's an interesting and heart-wrenching moment that
helped this film earn a star.
 In the
end when the film is over you're left with a nagging thought, a thought that
somehow ends up defeating the purpose of watching this film. You realize you
didn't leave the film with anything. There's nothing memorable from this film
and there's nothing even remotely realistic during the story. There are elements
throughout the story, elements of characters and subplots that are never fleshed
out, broadly emphasized and scattered among each other inevitably making a mess
of everything. This is a concept for a film that could have been, but is never a
whole film; there's subplots galore within the film that also feel tacked on.
There's the subplot with
Emily who is a musician striving to get into a music school, the subplot between
she and her teacher Pauline played by the under-used but talented Vivica A. Fox,
there's the subplot with her about her career, the subplot with the parents
pregnancy, the subplot with Emily's hiding secrets business which is a little
contrived from "Charlie Brown", and the subplot with the new kid in town Philip,
and the subplot with his brother David played by David Gallagher from the
unpleasant "Seventh Heaven", and his subplot with his tennis camp. I've just
scratched the tip of the iceberg regarding this film that relies heavily on
these plots that don't add up and feel tacked on and added at the last minute to
the script and seem to compensate for a thinly plotted melodrama that never
really finds a purpose or direction in storytelling.
I never really cared
about any of the other characters and what they were facing because they're all
so broadly and vaguely developed within the story, it becomes impossible to
relate to or like any of them. The character Emily is the only one in the film
who is developed, the rest seem like filler. The character Pauline is focused
on, but not enough, the characters David and Philip (Michael Angarano: Will
and Grace) are thinly developed as are Emily's friends who seem to always be
at camp or some sort of commune, it's never explained. They're characters seem
like mere add-ons that never truly take on a life of their own and never expand
beyond
Jessica Barondes' written screenplay.
Then when the film
reaches its most desperate pinnacle, there's a truly tacked on unnecessary and
desperate attempt to pull at audience's heartstrings involving a tragedy and a
core character from the cast. I cringed at this little plot twist that seemed so
blatantly developed to make one last effort to create a dramatic film, but it
comes off as a pitiful endeavor.
 A very
broad annoying and overemotional little drama but is ultimately saved from being
a dud by the great performance by the scrumptious Evan Rachel Wood.
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