The Hindu : Karnataka News : A gentle tribute to an earlier time

Online edition of India's National Newspaper
Sunday, Nov 04, 2007
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Karnataka

Karnataka

A gentle tribute to an earlier time

Nancy Drew (English)

Cast: Emma Roberts, Josh Flitter, Tate Donovan

Director: Andrew Fleming

It is a sad that Nancy Drew, our constant companion of rainy days and Mondays, does not attract the kind of obsessive fanboy that graphic novels and DC comic heroes do.

For where for graphic novels and angsty superheroes like Batman and Spiderman you have the coolest, hippest, directors from Tim Burton and the Hughes Brothers to the Wachowski Brothers directing and countless reams written about the production, “Nancy Drew” directed by Andrew Fleming comes to theatres with minimum fuss. In a way it is alright as the movie is nothing to go gaga about, but nor is it such a bad film either. From the opening credits where you see those beloved yellow-cover hardbacks to the line drawings coming alive, the movie is a gentle tribute to an earlier refined time. Nancy Drew, the 18-year-old amateur detective created by Carolyn Keene, was a bit of a pain — being an insufferable Ms. Perfect.

The movie hits the right notes by not taking the title character too seriously. The movie is a tribute to the 1950s, a time when the books were really popular. Nancy, in the person of Emma Roberts (Julia Roberts’ niece), dresses in the style of the time right down to matching plaid penny loafers.

Her hair, while not titian, still the style is similar to what is in the illustrations. Nancy and her father, lawyer Carson Drew, come to Hollywood, and though she promises her father she will not do anymore sleuthing, quickly gets involved in the mysterious death of the movie star Delia Draycott.

The Drews stay in Draycott’s old crumbling mansion, which is full of secret passageways and trapdoors. Amidst all this Nancy has to get acclimatised to her new school where the students are only interested in the latest fashions, and Nancy in her neat clothes and polite manner sticks out like a sore thumb.

There is also a weird kid called Corky (played with creepy unctuousness by Josh Flitter in a rehash of his almost similar role in “License to Wed”) who has a crush on Nancy, which creates some tension when boyfriend Ned appears on the scene. Nancy Drew could well turn out to be the perfect tweener movie with all the mums reliving their long happy evenings spent with the intrepid Ms. Drew.

MINI ANTHIKAD-CHHIBBER

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