Chopra, J. (2006). Molly - An American Girl on the Home Front. DVD, Warner Home Video.$19.98
Viewer's Annotation: Molly wants to help the soldiers fighting oversees any way she can, but mostly by dancing Miss Victory in the school show.
Summary: Molly McIntire from the series of books by American Girl has come to the big screen. Molly is a typical tween living during the second World War. She and her friends go to school, watch movies, roller skate, and dream about their favorite teacher's wedding. They also practice black out drills, roll bandages, skip tea parties because there are no rations, and help sell war bonds. Molly's father is a doctor who ships out to England. Then her mother goes to work on an airplane assembly line. Then, her family takes in Emily, a refugee from England. Through it all, Molly is generous, but real and familiar. What she wants most is to star as Miss Victory in the school concert, to use her tap dance skills to show support for the soldiers fighting overseas.
Genre: family, friends, historical fiction, movie
Series : This movie is not part of a series, but it based on the Molly books which are part of the prolific American Girl series.
Evaluation: A great film--it took me four tissues to finish it.
Why it belongs in a Tween Collection: Like Kit Kittredge, this movie has a great mix of story and history, which will get tweens interested in life during World War II. Molly is so familiar, it's impossible not to sympathize with her situation, and tweens will wonder what their lives would have been like in 1943.
Watchalikes :
- Kit Kittredge
- Nim's Island
Other Useful Info:
Reviews:
New York Times TV review
Molly: An American Girl on the Home Front
A Girl, a War and a Bunch of Gentle Lessons
By ANITA GATES
Published: November 24, 2006
“Molly: An American Girl on the Home Front” is to sincere as “The Rocky Horror Picture Show” is to camp. So it’s both odd and satisfying, while watching this sweet holiday television movie (Sunday night on the Disney Channel), to come upon a “Mommie Dearest” moment.
When little Molly McIntire (Maya Ritter) refuses to eat the turnips served at dinner, the neighbor looking after her and her siblings orders her to sit at the table until she has cleaned her plate. “Which means I’ll be here until I die,” Molly announces woefully.
But unlike Christina Crawford, Molly has a mother (played by Molly Ringwald) who is willing to compromise. When Mom comes home from her job at the airplane factory, she warms up the turnips, mixing in a little butter and sugar (to heck with the rations!), and Molly happily finishes her meal.
It is wartime — 1944 to be exact — and Molly is learning about sacrifice, hardship, doing her part and the preciousness of family. As she does, viewers may be concerned about manipulation on more than one front.
First there’s Molly’s provenance. She is one of the dolls-with-historically-significant-back-stories that make up the lucrative American Girl empire. (The Fifth Avenue store has its own restaurant and its own on-site theater production, as well as floors of dolls, doll clothing, doll books and other accessories.) Clearly, at least one of the reasons the movie exists is to sell merchandise.
Then there’s the war. Granted, this is World War II, the one that even protesters in the Vietnam era could see as “the good war,” totally justified and noble. But it may seem to some viewers that Molly’s lessons in the necessity of the ultimate sacrifice are meant to persuade young viewers to see the current war in Iraq as equally noble.
Parents can talk to their children about that issue and then safely allow them to enjoy “Molly” for what it mostly is, a heartwarming, dreamlike vision of American small-town life six decades ago, with universal lessons around every corner.
In addition to loving her parents and tolerating her brother and sister, Molly has a rich life. She and her best friends go to the movies and learn about the world from the newsreels (in which young Princess Elizabeth of Britain makes a reassuring speech to children around the globe). They idolize a pretty young teacher, Miss Campbell (Sarah Manninen), and fantasize about her romance with and coming marriage to a handsome young soldier.
Molly desperately wants to win the lead in the big tap-dancing finale of the school’s Christmas show. She acknowledges that she isn’t a very good dancer but is willing to do whatever it takes to become one.
“I’ll practice day and night,” she announces, although she hates to practice. Her father (David Aaron Baker) supports her completely. “Once my girl makes up her mind, there’s no stopping her,” he tells her with an approving smile.
Molly’s trials include dealing with a wartime shortage of ice cream, saying a tearful goodbye to her father as he leaves for Britain, watching her mother take a job (horrors!) and, most intrusive of all, being forced to share her bedroom with a total stranger.
That stranger is Emily Bennett (Tory Green), a young refugee from London who modestly talks about living in a manor house and having the royal family to tea. (“It was only once.”) Not surprisingly, Molly’s resentment of Emily diminishes, and they become friends, even before Emily apologetically reveals her terrible secret.
“Molly: An American Girl” is poignant but carefully avoids difficult choices and long-term disappointment. A spelling bee that pits two major characters against each other is interrupted and declared a tie. Telegrams from the War Department arrive regularly, but really bad things happen only to minor characters. Hard work and sacrifice always pay off in victory. (Molly isn’t that great a tap dancer, but what are the odds of her winning the starring role in the show?) That, come to think of it, may be the most subversive message of all.
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