Review of Ramona and Beezus (2010) by Edith N — 26 May 2011

And to Think That I Saw It on Klickitat Street.

I read all these books when I was a kid. Sooooo many times. To the point that I can, in fact, still recite bits of it. Of course, it doesn't hurt that I reread several of them recently. This means that I spent large amounts of the movie informing Terra and David which book events happened in, about how old Ramona was supposed to be at the time, and the context surrounding it. Which means that a positive review from me on this also means a referendum on how well the books translate onscreen as well. Especially since these are some of my favourite children's books. I think these are classics, and I think every girl should read them. So when I say that this movie was very good, I also mean that the movie was actually about Ramona and Beezus, not some screenwriter's opinion of what two girls of their approximate age and social status should be like. Ramona has wacky, wacky adventures, but they are by and large the same kind of wacky adventures that Ramona had in the book. It's just that they're time-compressed.

Ramona Quimby (Joey King) lives on Klickitat Street in Portland, Oregon. She is perhaps ten, I think. Her older sister is Beatrice (Selena Gomez), but when Ramona was a baby, she couldn't pronounce it, and her sister has been Beezus ever since. She has a baby sister, Roberta, and her parents (Bridget Moynahan and John Corbett) have just taken out a loan to put an addition onto their house. Only Ramona's father loses his job. Her mother goes back to work part time at the doctor's office where she worked before Roberta was born. Ramona's Aunt Bea (Ginnifer Goodwin) comes to visit. It turns out that Uncle Hobart (Josh Duhamel), the uncle of Ramona's best friend, Howie Kemp (Jason Spevack), was Aunt Bea's high school sweetheart, and he's trying to woo her back. Ramona is not happy with this. She's also unhappy with her father's failure to find a job and the prospect that the family will have to move. And of course, Beezus is fifteen, and life is hard when you're fifteen.

The idea of Ramona pulling on the long ringlets of Susan (Sierra McCormick) doesn't quite work as well given that she is no longer in kindergarten. In fact, several of the events don't work as well with an older Ramona, even though many of them are the moments fans of the book probably remember best. By what is I believe third grade, kids don't tend to dream of being firemen as they were when they were little, and so it's a little less believable that Ramona would wear her pajamas under her clothes for the experience. (The movie also leaves out how wonderful and soft they were, which was part of the point.) It's the real problem with the fact that the movie compresses events of at least four of the books together. There is also the decided problem that the entire story seems to take place in just a few weeks, which means the lives of the Quimbys are pretty madcap. It seems clear in the books that most of Ramona's life is pretty normal, though with outcroppings of hilarity, but the movie doesn't give that impression.

On the other hand, I have always had a deep sympathy for Ramona. It isn't until quite late in the series that she's a middle child, but she feels like one for most of it. She's put upon, or at least thinks that she is. She doesn't believe that anyone really loves her, and they all like Beatrice best. And, as she points out, Roberta is still so young that everything she does is cute, even if Ramona would get in serious trouble for it. She is more imaginative in the movie than in the book, I think, but she is a child of boundless energy either way. She really is trying to be good, and it's very hard that no one seems to notice her unless she does something wrong. And creative children with a great deal of energy are also laughed at. It's harder to find friends, though all the adults seem to think it's easy. And Ramona is right, in the book ([i]Ramona and Her Mother[/i]?) where she announces it--she was never like Willa Jean (Ruby Curtis). Willa Jean was hopelessly spoiled.

Of course, we don't get much of that here. We do see Mrs. Kemp (Janet Wright), Howie's grandmother, yell at Ramona for "playing rough" with Willa Jean after Willa Jean has rammed into Ramona with her tricycle. (Which Ramona would not have done.) However, Howie doesn't seem to have parents, just his grandmother and uncle. Henry Huggins (Hutch Dano) is there, but he is there to be a second generation of girl-next-door romance. Most of the neighbours really only put in an appearance at the end, when they matter most, but that's because, well, they don't much matter. Even Howie's parents don't really matter, though it would be nice if they would have at least showed up in a scene or two and been established as such. This is the story of the Quimby family. Most notably the elder girls, who love each other and hate each other all at once, teasing each other and supporting each other. A lot of fuss is made about family movies, and a lot of people think they come out all the time. But Ramona is a basically good kid with a real, normal family. Her parents fight, but they love each other. She and her sister fight, but they love each other. I think perhaps people would have stronger relationships if they knew it was possible to do that a little more often.