Kit Kittredge: An American Girl – DVD Review

Film, Reviews, Top Story

One film can change a career quickly for an unestablished actor. For Abigail Breslin, Little Miss Sunshine took her from an afterthought in a Mel Gibson vehicle to being the next call after Dakota Fanning for child actress roles. After two other supporting roles in vehicles with A-listers already in 2008, her best film may have been the one few saw in Kit Kittredge: An American Girl.

Breslin is the title character, a tween during the Great Depression. When her father’s car dealership is taken by the bank and he takes off to find a good paying job in Chicago, wackiness enters her life as her mother takes in wacky boarders and hires a couple of hobos to fix things up around the house. When some of their money winds up stolen, and the hobos are deemed guilty, its up to Kit to solve the mystery and clear the name of the innocent.

Kit Kittredge certainly is an interesting film, as it’s a spot on period piece of Depression era U.S. It is something to behold, as it captures the era with vibrance and style that makes the film a marvel to watch. For a film that wasn’t heralded, or given a huge budget, it looks marvelous. One could spend long stretches of time avoiding the plot and just concentrating on how great the film looks. It’s the best representation of the time period since L.A Confidential on a pure aesthetic level.

The problem is that for all the film’s a/v prowess, it has a plot aimed directly at kids in terms of depth and intelligence. While not insulting, its chock full of after school special lessons and other things that would appeal to those 14 and under but come off as a bit preachy for those over it. It’s annoying for anyone who has gone through puberty when the film gets into family values and wholesome Americana like it’s a GOP convention. It’s effective but it gets a tad annoying at times.

Kittredge makes for an interesting film and worthwhile to see for anyone with children.

Presented in both full screen and wide screen formats, the film has a terrific transfer. This is a very colorful film, with lots of bright colors and interesting visuals. It looks terrific, down to the different shading in Abigail Breslin’s hair coming through cleanly and clearly.

The film’s Theatrical Trailer is included, as well as a Digital Copy of the film.

The DVD itself, despite how great it looks, is kind of weak in that it doesn’t contain anything remarkable in terms of extras. This is the perfect kind of film to have a big two disc edition with lots of extras, a treat to enjoy on DVD, as opposed to a bare bones release with not much to it. It’s definitely a family film and worthwhile if you have kids. For the rest of us, not so much.

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New Line presents Kit Kittredge: An American Girl . Directed by Patricia Rozema. Starring Abigail Breslin, Joan Cusack, Chris O’Donnell. Written by Valerie Tripp. Running time: 90 minutes. Rated G. Released on DVD: 10.28.2008. Available at Amazon.