“Ramona and Beezus” has enough charm to forgive it an unnecessary foray onto romantic-comedy turf. It also has just enough heft about the economic challenges families face today to be taken seriously.
Based on the novels of Beverly Cleary, the G-rated outing is set in Portland, Ore., where the lovely Quimbys of Klickitat Street reside. Robert (John Corbett) and Dorothy (Bridget Moynahan) Quimby have three girls who seem to confirm research about birth order.
Newcomer Joey King is 9-year-old Ramona, a sprite of great imagination, who has a gift, too, for mishaps. She’s the heart of the story.
Fifteen-year-old Beezus (Selena Gomez) is the type of eldest child who sets schoolteachers up for future disappointment. She’s an A student, a lovely girl, a responsible daughter. Wee Roberta Q., still in a high chair, is a slurping and gurgling prop. You can see where this setup might lead. The often-carefree Ramona has worries about getting lost between her siblings, Miss Perfect and Little Miss Utterly Dear.
Fortunately for Ramona, she has an ally. Ginnifer Goodwin portrays Aunt Bea, herself a younger sister. Bea is wonderfully solid when recognizing her niece’s mini-disasters as flights of open-heartedness. She’s more frazzled around Hobart (Josh Duhamel), the man who disappointed her long ago but has returned with hopes of “catching up.”
Directed by Elizabeth Allen and written by Laurie Craig and Nick Pustay, “Ramona and Beezus” is a gentle sketch of life the way the young experience it.
Ramona and best pal Howie (Jason Spevack) have adventures and the occasional misadventures. The film playfully depicts these goofball endeavors with effects that capture the makeshift nature of make-believe. Clouds are cotton-ball fluffy. Canyons are rough-hewn and roiling. As for self-assured Beezus, she’s noticing that her feelings for childhood best friend Henry (Hutch Dano) are evolving into a case of nerves.
Then one day, Dad goes to work as a marketing VP and comes home downsized. “Ramona and Beezus” handles this with an understanding of how families manage disaster. Parents have whispered conversations or muffled arguments as they forge a game plan. Dad tries to keep chipper and calm. Mom goes back to work while he hits the job circuit.
It’s an admirable finessing of a dilemma likely to resonate as reality or anxiety, given the nation’s unemployment rate.
Two summers ago, the girl-targeted kid flick “Kit Kittredge: An American Girl,” set in the Great Depression, undertook a similar task. A deeper, better film, it hewed to the upended life of its kid reporter and still managed to find a triumphal message.
“Ramona and Beezus” cheats with a rom-com solution. It’s not that the subplot of a beloved aunt reconnecting (or not) to her high-school sweetheart is bad. How can it be, with the winning Duhamel portraying the guy trying to win back the girl? But the movie would be just fine, better even, if it belonged wholly to the sisters Quimby.
“Ramona and Beezus.”
G. 1 hour, 44 minutes. Directed by Elizabeth Allen; written by Laurie Craig and Nick Pustay; from the books by Beverly Cleary; photography by John Bailey; starring Joey King, Selena Gomez, John Corbett, Bridget Moynahan, Ginnifer Goodwin, Josh Duhamel. Opens today at area theaters.
