This Review Reveals Minor Details About the Plot.
Plot Overview
It's
June of 1934, the middle of the Great Depression
(“Everyone's in trouble these days.”) A newsboy in
downtown Cincinnati is trumpeting, “HOBO CRIME SPREE
SWEEPS THE OHIO VALLEY!” Jack Kittredge (Chris O'Donnell) of
Kittredge Fine Automobiles spares a moment in his un-busy
day to come out and greet his nine-year-old daughter Kit (Abigail
Breslin) who's on her way to visit the Cincinnati
Register. He tells his sole salesman she's going to be
a reporter some day. He's got a full inventory of sleek cars in a
choice location, but of course nobody can afford to buy them. His son helps
out with family expenses. Soon the bank will foreclose on his
dealership. Kit while her class is volunteering for the soup kitchen
discovers him there embarrassed. Ouch!
Jack travels to Chicago following
leads to find work. Kit's mother Margaret (Julia Ormond) plants a
vegetable garden and barters with wandering hobos Will Sheperd (Max
Thieriot) and Countee Garvy (Willow Smith) for handyman work in
exchange for food. She takes in boarders, as well.
One of them
is mobile librarian Miss Lucinda Bond (Joan Cusack) who loans a
book each to the two hobos, although Countee can't read except he
read hobo. Their books emulate the plot of the movie. Will's is
The Adventures of Robin Hood. After reading it he asks
the camp doctor if somebody who robs from the rich and gives
to the poor is a good person or a bad? Duh. The robbers' moll
eventually confesses, “I'm sorry … we were trying to
be like Robin Hood – you know, steal from the rich to give to
the poor. But … really, all we were doing was stealing from
the rich ... and the poor ... and keeping it for ourselves.”
Illiterate Coulee got a book
of nursery rhymes. Nursery rhyme investigator Katherine Thomas in
her Foreword quotes Henry Betts in the Intro to his Nursery Rhymes and
Tales (Methuen & Co., Ltd., London, 1924): “They are to be
found all over Europe and they have analogies among uncivilized
peoples all over the world. It appeared, also, that many of them
are of incredible antiquity, bearing unmistakable traces of origin
in prehistoric times.” The movie “Kit Kittredge”
follows the archetype:
Hey diddle, diddle, The cat and the fiddle, The cow jumpt over the moon; The little dog laughed To see such sport, And the dish ran away with the spoon.“Hey diddle, diddle is an exceedingly ancient refrain” (Thomas 136)
“Queen Elizabeth, thus gaily dancing into the limelight of to-day, was familiarly dubbed ‘the Cat’” (Thomas 137). At age 16 she danced at a concert in London. “At the supposedly sedate age of forty-eight, ‘the Cat’ was frequently to be caught sight of in her apartments spiritedly dancing to the music of her beloved fiddle” (Thomas 138). The dance instructor cum boarder Miss Dooley (Jane Krakowski) similarly dances away throughout our movie. A hobo drawing of a cat stands for a kind person.
“The cow jumping over the moon, like other lines of the jingle, holds a dual import as a bit of pleasantry, aimed at the elaborate charades for which Elizabeth … made the headquarters at Whitehall and Hampton Court famous” (Thomas 139). “Elizabeth herself has written in a command to Burleigh and Walsingham in relation to their journey … to Fotheringay Castle, wherein Mary of Scotland was confined,” (Thomas 138) to make inquiries. “Davison … is especially commanded by her Majesty to signify to them both ‘how her Spirit and her Moon do find themselves’” (Life of Davison, Sir Harry Nicholas, Bodleian Library.) The herald to the moon person and back was the cow jumping over it. Here the newspaper editor Mr. Gibson (Wallace Shawn) being short and bald could be compared to the moon, and his encouragement to Kit on her second visit shows her story had legs. Coulee would know right away that a hobo drawing of a fish skeleton meant lots of food there but thought a moon-jumping cow “silly.”
“The sports at which ‘the
little dog laughed’ were, in addition to the political ones,
the gorgeous tournaments held in the tilt-yard of Whitehall
when the frolicsomeness of the court convulsed the nation
over the antics thus performed with grotesque gravity”
(Thomas 140). Kit jumped up and down with joy to receive the dog
Grace as a present on her tenth birthday.
“Queen Elizabeth taking
stringent precautions against any attempt to poison the sovereign
insisted on having her meals served with a taster, [called]
‘the Spoon’, always a beautiful young woman of the
court. ‘The Dish’ was the formal title of the courtier
detailed to carry certain golden dishes into the state dining-room.
¶“The particular Dish and Spoon whose running away has
been thus forever commemorated were undoubtedly Edward Earl of
Hertford and Lady Katherine Grey. This couple having
contracted a secret marriage—” (Thomas 140–1).
A definite possibility of surprise nuptials is also presented at
the end of our movie.
Ideology
The movie tropes go back a ways, way back, before there were movies to portray them, before there were printing presses to popularize them, back to when they were written on scrolls—or perhaps even earlier for aural transmission. The words of a mysterious Agur were appended to the Proverbs of Solomon, preserved by the Jews in their Tanakh, appropriated by Christians in their Bible, and eventually sneaked into movies.
A small potatoes example is here
presented. (Prov. 30:24)
“There be four things which are little upon the earth, but
they are exceeding wise:”
(Prov. 30:25) “The ants are a
people not strong, yet they prepare their meat in the
summer.” One does well to start working early, in the summer
of life. Kit submitted a correctly formatted article to the
newspaper at age nine. At ten she was servicing the boarders'
domestic needs: “clean & sweep & fold & iron
& cook.” Pre-teen Countee joined teenager Will who'd
“figured it was time for me to strike out on my own
(‘Those boys are someone's children, too’)
… work when I could.” “I can pretty much fix
anything broke: fences, windows, any kind of machine.”
When the Kittredge family fortune took a turn for the worse,
Kit peddled eggs.
She still did investigative
reporting on the side. Her college age brother “postponed”
college to work for the CCC “sending money home because business is a
little slow.” Nineteen-year-old copy boy Jim has his desk piled high
with papers. Lots of good examples here.
(Prov. 30:26) “The conies are but a feeble folk, yet make they their houses in the rocks.” They are protected there. Similarly, the hobos are protected in their camp, one of them even “hiding in plain sight.”
(Prov. 30:27) “The locusts have no king, yet go they forth all of them by bands.” It helps one gain success in life to have an informal support network. The destitute hoboes cooked a mulligan daily: “In most hobo camps, hobos share what they have: potatoes, vegetables, and on a good day, maybe meat. They put it in a pot and cook it all together, and call it hobo stew. Those that can contribute do so. Those who can't try harder the next day, but all are welcome to partake.”
(Prov. 30:28) “The spider taketh hold with her hands, and is in kings' palaces.” The palace gets swept regularly clearing out the cobwebs. The spider just takes it upon herself to put up a new web. When the family strongbox gets pilfered, Kit investigates to find out who did it. She's a regular Nancy Drew.
Production Values
“” (2008) was directed by Canadian Patricia Rozema. Its screenplay was written by Ann Peacock, based on the Kit Kittredge stories by authoress Valerie Tripp. It stars Abigail Breslin, Stanley Tucci and Joan Cusack. Breslin is exceptional, and all the children were old enough to be directed. As for the adults, this wasn't their first rodeo.
It's rated G. The film showcases moviedom at its best,
from the pristine Kittredge home and grounds to the period costumes
to the excellent cinematography. The period music was
nostalgic. As for the script, it's a nice combo of history, intrigue, and guts.
The Cincinnati Police Dept.,
considered one of the best in the country, seemed to have dropped
the ball in not adequately describing the two main suspects. Being
inseparable and each of a different race, they would have stood
out. When I was in Cinti in 1965,
I witnessed a robbery. The police had me ride with them in their
patrol car looking for the “negro” who did it. Today he
would be described differently if at all. The period lingo would
have used such an “n” word, or perhaps another from
Texas where Will was from. At any rate the girls made a monkey of
themselves integrating their tree house club, but not
touching the ninth street [segregated?] club. We the audience are
given considerable latitude filling in the gaps. Runtime ≈
1¾ hours.
Review Conclusion w/a Christian's Recommendation
This movie ends happily with a well-
attended and well-provisioned thanksgiving dinner. For an
"American Girl" movie, it sure used a lot of true British source
material, but it makes up for it with glimpses into American hobo
life. Clichés abound, but to young viewers they're probably fresh,
so I pass on criticizing an otherwise good story. For all ages.
Movie Ratings
Action factor: Decent action scenes. Suitability for children: Suitable for all ages. Special effects: Average special effects. Video Occasion: Good for Groups. Suspense: Keeps you on the edge of your seat. Overall movie rating: Four stars out of five.
Works Cited
Scripture is quoted from the King James Version. Pub. 1611, rev, 1769. Software.
Thomas, Katherine. The Real Personages of Mother Goose. Copyright, 1930, by Lothrop, Lee & Shepard Co. Copyright in Great Britain, the British Dominions and Possessions. Boston: Lothrop, Lee & Shepard Co. Print.
bibles.n7nz.org