Synopsis: High school girl Nancy Drew is a superstar in her small town home, and a valued police resource. When she and her widowed dad move to Los Angeles for a time he makes her promise to give up sleuthing and become a normal teenager, but this is a promise she finds it impossible to keep. Although she struggles to fit in at school, her old-fashioned sincerity and politeness keep her from mixing, and the house the Drews are renting has its own twenty year old mystery to solve. When the unknowing heiress at the heart of the case turns out to be a struggling single mother, there is more than just intellectual curiosity at stake, and Nancy must face up to the unpleasantness of big city, big money crime if she is to save the day.

Review: Nancy Drew, girl sleuth, has been a popular literary figure since her creation almost eighty years ago, with books in the series being constantly revised and reissued to keep the character modern. Despite this process of updating, however, it is easy to see why the new film incarnation of Nancy (played by Emma Roberts) is depicted as an old-fashioned, almost timeless creature, with a quaintly iconic dress sense. Overall, the characterisation of Nancy as a slightly lonely, socially awkward over-achiever, whose perfect behaviour and excess of pluck border on the level of tragic obsession, is well done. While counter-pointed by many of the customary ‘unconventional girl becomes cool’ clichés, there is a real vulnerability to Nancy.

Speaking of clichés, the teenage detective genre is of course replete with them, and the film-makers clearly knew this. Mysterious letters, hidden wills, secret passages and a creepy old janitor are just the tip of the iceberg, and the fact that this sort of thing only happens in Nancy Drew books is more or less the point. There are of course clues, discovered with a mixture of coincidence and ingenuity, and the mystery has enough twists to please a younger audience. In solving the puzzle and thwarting the bad guys, Nancy makes use of a splendid array of sleuthing tools, ranging from the venerable string and paperclip grapnel clip, to the use of a thoroughly modern digital recorder.

The film has its problems – a few odd editing choices in the early reels make the beginning of the film seem disjointed, and the use of slow-mo in the explosion sequence does not dramatic tension make – but picks up several bonus points as well. The inclusion of a Bjork-esque cover of Joy Division’s Blue Monday in the bouncy pop soundtrack is a delight and the line ‘something about the Loch Ness Monster and some missing diamonds’ has to be worthy of note. Better yet is the attention to detail shown by having a desperate, heartfelt letter which is full of crossings out – because you wouldn’t redraft something like that – and _never mentioning it_.

The essential passivity of the male characters means that it is unlikely to have the same appeal for boys as it will for girls. While there is also plenty for adults to enjoy if watching with their children, it is not quite enough for this to be a true crossover hit. Nevertheless, Nancy Drew is a bouncy, lightweight thriller for the plucky, self-aware teen, and should delight any girl from age seven upwards who aspires to one day be a plucky, self-aware teen.

2008-02-04