Literary Safari

I blogged this last week at Sepia Mutiny. Just catching up! 

A break from politics and world news (and my crazy workday) to share this short, sweet video that I just caught wind of via my daily VSL fix.

It’s called “Rewind City” and is a French TV ad currently airing for Orange’s DVR service in France. Watch as the unexpressed wish of a tearful backpacker comes true when the traffic and people in a Goan village conspire to reverse direction.

Filmed in village of Assonora, 15km east of the town of Mapusa (a hub for bus travel) in North Goa, it’s directed by British director Ringan Ledwidge. The main characters came from Paris, the 250 extras came from Mumbai, and the other backpacker types came from Anjuna, home to the famous Goa hippie flea market.

The ad asks the question, “What if you could rewind a memorable moment in your life?” Not a bad question to ask of oneself every now and then.

The Oscar buzz has already started and it’s only been one day since “Slumdog Millionaire” was released. So far, the new offering from British director Danny Boyle (of Trainspotting fame) has been referred to by The New York Times as a film that “could be the breakthrough work that leads the world to focus on the genre …of Parallel Cinema, a more personal narrative type of film like Mira Nair’s art house hit “Monsoon Wedding.”

And, Roger Ebert predicts the film will win an Best Picture Oscar nomination, calling it “a breathless, exciting story, heartbreaking and exhilarating at the same time [whose] universal appeal will present the real India to millions of moviegoers for the first time.”

When you read gushing reviews like Ebert’s, you can’t help but walk into the movie hall with high expectations, wondering whether a film can really live up to all the hype. The answer is: Yes.

“Slumdog Millionaire” is being billed as a film about “first love, determination, and realizing your destiny.” Not quite the pitch what you’d expect from a mainstream film about a kid from an Indian slum. This is a film that will surprise viewers who think they’re going in to watch a movie about India’s tremendous poverty and rich-poor gap. It switches swiftly between scenes that take you into an India that is at once poor and wealthy, moral and crime-ridden, developed and undeveloped, hopeful and disappointing. And, though the story is laced with a trace of Bollywood romance, goondas, and some implausability, it is for the most part, as Roger Ebert says, “real.” Add to that a soundtrack by A.R. Rahman and Danny Boyle’s directorial talent for bringing India’s sensory overload and motion to life without the typical exoticism or “oh those poor things” mentality and you have a winner.

More of my review below the fold. (more…)

Trailers for books are pretty commonplace nowadays, but bestselling author Robin Cook (mastermind of the medical thriller) and former Disney head Michael Eisner have cooked up (no pun intended!) an online plot that takes this concept a step further: href=”http://www.foreignbody.tv/”>Foreign Body, a “50 episode exotic thriller” (each two-minute episode can be watched for free on your computer or downloaded to your cell phone) that’s essentially serving as a prequel and promo for Cook’s forthcoming novel of the same title, which will be published by G.P. Putnam’s Sons in August.

A doctor by training, Cook began writing medical thrillers 36 years ago, and has made his name with books such as Terminal, Shock, Seizure, and his most popular Coma , which was published in 1977.

In recent years, he began noticing that his readers weren’t getting any younger. “The trouble is, now there are so many other things trying to get people’s attention – in particular, the younger people — and rather than try and fight it, you really have to kind of use it,” Cook told NPR’s Nate DiMeo. [see full NPR story ] last week.

To the rescue is this low-budget ($500,000 budget) “exotic thriller” which zig zags from Malibu, California to New Delhi, India and has at its heart a plot of intrigue and drama about outsourcing—of the medical kind. That is, the growing industry of medical tourism in India, which brought over 500,000 foreign patients to India for medical care in 2005. (Estimates project medical tourism could bring India as much as $2.2 billion per by 2012, but will those numbers be dented by this series/book’s look into the “dark side of medical tourism”?).

The story:

A group of dangerous Indian beauties, brimming with hope and desire are brought to the sunny shores of Southern California and are promised the American dream. They are taken in by a group of young, cutthroat medical entrepreneurs who hope to train them and cultivate their nursing skills for their own mysterious ends. The women soon become seduced by the brash and ambitious charmer who lords over them, but for him, his lust for the one, mysterious, unattainable beauty threatens to unravel the very conspiracy he built. But who is seducing whom and what exactly are the women really being trained to do? With freedoms in America they could never imagine, the girls discover they just might get what they want, no matter the consequences or the risks involved.

If you’re rolling your eyes or arching your eyebrows already, don’t stop. The first episode has a bunch of bikini-clad Indian nurses frolicking in the Southern California beach and the second or third episode has a scene where a US-based entrepreneur is interviewing candidates to come to the US. The opening scene has a quote from the Bhagavad Gita.

I started watching the series as soon as I heard the NPR story on its launch date. My impression so far: Think Baywatch meets ER meets Zee TV drama meets daytime soap with a twist of “here’s another reason to vilify globalization and outsourcing” thrown in. Of course, I don’t know how this will end, but it’s leading up to a novel about a “sinister, multilayered conspiracy of global proportions” so, need I really say anymore?

You can watch a compilation of week one’s episodes at Sepia Mutiny, where this post was originally published.

In their book Borders and Boundaries, editors Ritu Menon and Kamla Bhasin write: “As an event of shattering consequence, Partition retains its pre-eminence even today, despite two wars on our borders and wave after wave of communal violence. … Each new eruption of hostility or expression of difference swiftly recalls that bitter and divisive erosion of social relations between Hindus, Muslims and Sikhs, and each episode of brutality is measured against what was experienced then.”

This statement speaks directly to the premise of Pakistani director Mehreen Jabar’s debut film Ramchand Pakistani, which recently premiered in NY at the Tribeca Film Festival. Based on a series of true events which took place in 2002—during a period where India and Pakistan were on the brink of war—it is the story of one innocent Hindu Dalit family which became a victim of the national hostilities that have permeated Indo-Pak relations since partition. The story begins in a small, dusty border village in on the Pakistan side of the Thar desert. Ramchand (Fazal Hussain) is the willful, naughty son of a Hindu Dalit farmer Shankar (Rashid Farooqi) and his wife Champa (played by Nandita Das). One morning, when Ramchand gets into an argument with his mother, he skips school and goes for a walk in the desert terrain bordering his father’s farm. Without realizing it, he crosses over into Indian territory. His father follows him to bring him back, but it’s too late. Indian patrol officers, suspicious of their motives (“Are you Pakistani spies?”) take both of them into custody.

For the next five years, Ramchand and his father are trapped in a bureaucratic prison system in India, where despite the lack of evidence that they did anything wrong, it is impossible to release them because of a longstanding battle of wills between the Indian and Pakistani governments. The film follows Ramchand’s coming of age in a prison where he and his father share a cell with Indians and Pakistanis, many of whom made the mistake of “crossing over” and have gotten lost in the shuffle.

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When I went to a screening of The Kite Runner a couple of weeks ago, I didn’t know what to expect. The book had made an indelible impression on me when I read it a few years ago, but I’m always wary of books turned into films, always doubtful that they will have the same impact.

With a story like The Kite Runner, I was actually hopeful that the result would be a good one, especially since while reading the book, I was struck by the cinematic feel. (Apparently so were producers William Horberg and Rebecca Yedlham, formerly at Dreamworks. They secured rights to adapt the forthcoming novel when they read an unpublished manuscript of The Kite Runner back in 2003. “It’s a story that’s told in the most lyrical, evocative, and beautiful way, one that lends itself to a visual interpretation; as you’re reading, you literally see its events unfold,” says Yeldham.)

The road to the cinematic arrival of Khaled Hosseini’s bestselling novel (8 million copies sold in 40 languages worldwide) has not been an easy one. Once the screenplay, adapted by David Benioff (The 25th Hour, Troy), director, Marc Foster (Finding Neverland, Monster’s Ball), and adult Amir, Egyptian actor Khalid Abdala were in place, there remained the matter of finding the actors who would play little Amir and Hassan, the childhood best friends who are at the center of this drama about friendship and redemption.

Kate Down, a London-based casting agent (Finding Neverland) traveled to Afghanistan where she canvassed schools, orphanages, and playgrounds of war torn Kabul in search of the perfect child stars. It was at a local French Lycee that she discovered Zekiria Ebrahami, a 5th grader who would play Amir. Through the Afghan Relief Organization she found both Ahmad Khan Mahmoodzada, who superbly plays the faithful Hazara servant boy Hassan andAli Danesh Bhaktyari , who plays his orphan son Sohrab.

Once the actors were found, an ideal filming location that was reminiscent of pre-Taliban, rubble-esque Afghanistan had to be found. The “lost Kabul” was found in the desert region of the People’s Republic of China, between the ancient cities of Kashgar and Tashkurbhan. This section of the famed Silk Road is interestingly a vibrant Islamic center within Chinese society, where Indian and Persian influences abound.

With all this in place, the film was ready to be made. But, the challenges did not stop there. Shooting in China was no piece of cake … and, we’re all familiar with the controversy that has surrounded these first-time actors. With much controversy swirling around the rape scene in the film, these children and their families have had to be transplanted outside of Afghanistan, to an unrevealed town in Saudi Arabia.

I always trust the NYT reviews of films. In this case, I’m glad I saw the movie before I read Manohla Dargis’s review which calls the screenplay “clumsy,” says that there is ” remarkably little of visual interest” in the film, and complains that it “lacks credible performances.” Dargis also complains about the overly dramatic fight scene at the end of the film, where Amir must rescue Zohrab from the Taliban.

Sure, the action and the gory blood scenes that accompanied it reminded me of a Bollywood movie, but they were not disjointed from the overall feel and theme of the story. There is something in The Kite Runner that is reminiscent of my favorite Bollywood films – the ones that do justice to themes of friendship, family, evil vs. good, and what goes around comes around. Sometimes that’s a good thing.

I also thought that Marc Foster and his team did incredible justice to a novel that has such epic proportions. Besides the diligent recreation of the Afghan landscape, home, and street scenes, one of my favorite things about the movie was the fact that much of it takes place in the Dari language. This added a level of authenticity to the film, which would have been missing had it been solely in English. Finally, I was also struck by the performances of all the characters, particularly the children and Homayoun Ershadi, who plays Amir’s larger-than-life father Baba.

Of course, there remains the question of whether I agree with the inclusion of the rape scene. I’ve been conflicted about it for weeks. I feel that some blame must be placed on the production studio who should have informed the families of the children of the nature of the film. And, I’ve been wondering whether the film could have had the same power without the alley scene. There’s always a way to show what might happen, and I can’t help but think that those kids and their families could have been spared the personal turmoil and displacement. If anyone else has seen the film, I’d be curious to know your thoughts on this point.

At the end of the day, The Kite Runner is a story about making up for things done wrong, a story about forgiveness and self-forgiveness, and a story about faith. That it is set in Afghanistan is a plus. The American cinema needs more films that criss cross the continents that are so inextricably tied together, and this movie is one that could do a great deal to promote a better understanding between Americans and Afghani Americans.

A final note about music: One of the most powerful scenes in the film, for me, was when Amir enters a mosque while he is looking for Zohrab. That slice of the film – the prayer, the music, Supplication by Sami Yusuf – is what this film is all about – frienship, redemption, hope, self-forgiveness, surrender, and a learned humility. This is the essence of the film’s tagline: There’s a way to be good again. And, regardless of religion or culture, this is a theme that we can all identify with … at the risk of sounding cliche, dare I say, especially during the holiday season ….

Related:
Salon interview with Khaled Hossein
Official movie site

With a mixture of excitement and skepticism, I have anxiously been awaiting the release of Persepolis, the onscreen adaptation of Marjane Satrapi’s much lauded graphic novel (of the same name) about her childhood during the Islamic Revolution in Iran. Despite the awards and rave reviews thus far, I still couldn’t help but wonder how a riveting black and white comic would actually come to life on film, that too in animated form …

I should have known better than to doubt the vision of Marjane Satrapi, who was deeply involved in the two plus years adaptation process [read Deborah Solomon interview]. Starting with the opening shot, a whimsical garden scene with butterflies, birds, leaping fish, and shooting stars, I was hooked.

I had expected the movie to be all black and white, like the book, but the filmmakers cleverly (and successfully) threw in a splash of color. The film begins at Paris airport, in full color, and is set in the present, where an adult Marjane Satrapi serves as narrator, framing each of the sections of the film—her childhood in Tehran, her adolescence and the rise of the Ayatollah, her move to Vienna, and her return to Iran—all of which take place in B&W.

Marjane is an endearing and memorable protagonist; her grandmother a fountain of wisdom who imparts golden nuggets of wisdom in shotgun fashion (“Be true to yourself, keep your word, etc.); and her parents political activists eager to raise an independent and intelligent daughter. (The timing is good; we need more works in the mainstream media that dispel stereotypes of the Muslim world, including Iran which has received much flack in recent months.)

Whether it’s in full color or black and white, Persepolis takes us into Marjane Satrapi’s world; that is, we are seeing it through her eyes. In many cases, quite literally—there are numerous close-ups of her wide-open eyes. Whether she is or asking her grandmother about the jasmines in her brassiere or trying to buy bootleg heavy metal on the streets of Tehran, Marjane is a curious and a realist.

The animation style of Marjane’s personal and family matches her personality; the drawings are life-like, not cartoon-y. When Marjane’s father or uncle or grandmother tell her about the political history of Iran, the style of the scenes switch—and we are reminded of puppet shows and Persian miniatures. And, when Satrapi’s personal narrative is interrupted by scenes of war or her imagined conversations with God, dark and textured charcoals, evocative of woodcuts, take over the screen. Just beautiful.

I’m not going to compare the book to the movie. Details from the pages sometimes didn’t make it onto the screen, and details from the screen sometimes could never have been captured in the book. So, all I can say is if you’ve seen the movie, read the book. And, if you’ve read the book, definitely watch the movie.

Bottomline: If a film can be poetry, then Persepolis is just that—a powerful personal coming of age story innovatively made into a masterful cartoon that has drama, strains of magical realism, a sweet and sassy sense of humor, and a memorable soundtrack to boot.

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In this month’s The Atlantic, a fascinating read about Newline Cinema’s on screen adaptation of Philip Pullman’s The Golden Compass:

How Hollywood Saved God, by Hanna Rosin (thanks for the tip, Ennis.)

It took five years, two screenwriters, and $180 million to turn a best-selling antireligious children’s book into a star-studded epic—just in time for Christmas.

Despite the studios efforts to wrap the story in a religious cloak, the conservative media is still taking turns bashing the film. More on that here.

I was flipping channels on Jet Blue a couple of nights ago (I still can’t get over the fact that I could find nothing to watch from beginning to end during two six-hour flights). Anyway, at some point I landed on CNN’s Headline News channel.

Anchor Glenn Beck had a segment called “Atheist Agenda” where he was chatting up two very right-wing guests about the atheist agenda behind the upcoming movie The Golden Compass (starring Nicole Kidman), which is based on Philip Pullman’s His Dark Materials series Book I.

Sheesh.

BECK: I mean, I have my standards, America.

You know how Hollywood knows it has a potential hit on its hands? Probably when the movie in question pisses off as many people as possible, it`s always a good sign to them. With nearly two months to go before it actually hits theaters, “The Golden Compass” is the latest example of this controversy-to-cash equation, having already been the source of an angry press release by the Catholic League for, quote, “selling atheism to kids,” and, ironically enough, the National Secular Society of London, because the filmmakers took out all the really juicy anti-religious parts.

The film is based on the first installment of an award-winning children`s series called “His Dark Materials.” Nothing spooky or sketchy about that title, huh? The author is an avowed atheist. But if Tinseltown has already pretty much sanitized it for our protection, what`s the problem?

Well, Tim LaHaye and Jerry Jenkins, authors of the wildly popular “Left Behind” series, are here to tell us.

Tim, let me start with you. What`s the problem with this movie?

TIM LAHAYE, AUTHOR, “LEFT BEHIND” BOOKS: Well, the problem is it`s a vicious attack on Christianity, the church, and moral values.

BECK: OK, the movie is or the book is?

LAHAYE: Well, nobody knows about the movie. They say that they`ve cleaned it up, but how do we know until we see it?

[Umm, well, you could start by reading the news articles that are out there. All mention of God has most certainly been cut from the "The Golden Compass."]

What got to me most was that neither of the guests had read the series, and neither had Glenn Beck. Yet, here they were making blanket statements about how it should be kept from the innocent eyes and minds of today’s youth:

BECK: Tim, you say that atheism is on the rise in this country and it`s tearing us apart, and I believe I agree with you.

LAHAYE: Well, it`s not only on the increase, but it`s becoming more evangelistic and more aggressive. And I think this is just one symptom. Pullman admits that he`s an activist atheist, and he`d like to tear down the church and discredit it in the eyes of the young people. I think this is more than entertainment, like “The Wizard of Oz.” This is something like indoctrination against belief in God.

BECK: OK. I have not — I`ve never even heard of this series before. Can either of you — have either of you read this series? Can you tell me what`s in it that is so disturbing, the things that are in it?

JENKINS: That`s the problem, is that we haven`t seen it and we don`t like people criticizing our stuff when we haven`t read it. But from all the things that have been quoted about the author, he clearly is, as Dr. LaHaye says, an active atheist and wants to propagate his views. You know, we live in a free society where we`re competing in the marketplace of ideas, and I say bring it on, but make it clear what you`re doing, and then if it`s something that kids shouldn`t see, then parents ought to keep them from seeing it.

Does Pullman describe himself as an atheist? On his website, he says:

is Dark Materials seems to be against organised religion. Do you believe in God?

I don’t know whether there’s a God or not. Nobody does, no matter what they say. I think it’s perfectly possible to explain how the universe came about without bringing God into it, but I don’t know everything, and there may well be a God somewhere, hiding away.

Actually, if he is keeping out of sight, it’s because he’s ashamed of his followers and all the cruelty and ignorance they’re responsible for promoting in his name. If I were him, I’d want nothing to do with them.

In a more indepth interview about his view of organized religion, he says, “Can I elucidate my own position as far as atheism is concerned? I don’t know whether I’m an atheist or an agnostic. I’m both, depending on where the standpoint is.” [read the full interview at Third Way Magazine, a British publication that looks at "the modern world through Christian eyes." It's fascinating. ] …

Later in the same interview:

A lot of people assume from The Amber Spyglass that you must be an atheist.Well, they can assume what they like. Of course, I don’t say, ‘There is no God.’ I say: ‘There is a God, and here he is dying’ – and this is what I was particularly pleased with, as a result of an act of charity. And he goes ‘with a sigh of the most profound and exhausted relief’.

Would it have been too much trouble for one of Beck’s assistants or producers to have picked up the book and actually done some research? Or, to have invited a reader or reviewer on board who actually has studied or read Pullman’s books? I’m sure Huw Spanner, who interviewed Pullman for Third Way which is a magazine for people who haven’t lost faith in God or lost touch with the world” would have had some interesting points to add to the discussion.

“Fie to those British authors out to poison our children’s minds,” these guests seemed to be saying. “If it’s not C.S. Lewis, we won’t read it.”

Sigh. I wouldn’t expect this of CNN. But then again, I’m not surprised. Whatever has happened to debating two sides of an issue and the role of the media as the 4th estate?

Thanks to The Rational Response Squad for posting a transcript, from which I excerpted above.

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On August 15, 60 years will have passed since India gained independence from British rule. August 15th is also my grandfather’s birthday (though he was, of course, born a few decades before 1947). I thought I’d mark the upcoming anniversary by keeping tabs on India-related stories and features that catch my eye over the next several days. If I’m inspired, I’ll do more than just keep tabs. Let’s see.

So, today’s picks:

1) “Exit Wounds” – Pankaj Mishra’s review of Indian Summer, by Alex von Tunzelmann in this week’s New Yorker. The book cover at right must be the British edition. That image is so much more evocative than the U.S. edition I saw at Barnes and Noble last weekend.

2) Speaking of Pankaj Mishra, courtesy of the NYT literary blog Paper Cuts comes a weekly series “Living with Music”that features authors’ playlists. What a great idea. Of music, Mishra said:

“I find it impossible to listen to music while writing, but I cannot imagine traveling or indeed almost doing anything else, without it. And nothing matches music’s ability to create specific moods, or briskly evoke places and times remote from me.”

And, here’s a bit of Pankaj Mishra’s playlist:

• Sand Mandala, Philip Glass. Travelling in Tibet recently, I found this hypnotic opening from the Martin Scorsese’s film “Kundun” a very congenial companion.

• Greensleeves, John Coltrane. In his experimental phase, which greatly annoyed Philip Larkin, Coltrane produced many distinguished failures such as “India” and“Brazilia.” Playing soprano sax here, he makes this traditional English ballad swing.

• Gulon Mein Rang Bhare, Mehdi Hasan: This elegant rendition of a ghazal by one of the subcontinent’s greatest poets Faiz Ahmed Faiz is a perennial favorite.

• Overjoyed, Mary J. Blige. Her rich, soulful voice gives this Stevie Wonder classic a new edge. Perfect for bus rides in summer-bright London.

• Bahon Mein Chale Aao, Lata Mangeshkar. A cover version in the movie “The Namesake” renewed my memory of this old, wonderfully melodious song by the “Nightingale of India.” The music is by R.D. Burman, one of Bollywood’s greatest composers, who had a genius for blending disparate-seeming traditions.

3) On the Leonard Lopate show, an interview with author and film critic Anumpama Chopra about her new book King of Bollywood, which is all about Shah Rukh Khan and the rise of Bollywood. Asks Leonard Lopate: “Why is SRK bigger than Brad Pitt and Tom Cruise combined? “Her answer:

“What SRK has done is basically captured the new India – he is the face of the new urban India, the post-liberalization India. It’s a country full of hope which is slowly emerging as an economic superpower. His films basically reflect that. They’re all about consumption, about beautiful people in beautiful places. He has really become the repository for all those dreams of all of us who are taking baby steps into a new world. … He tells us all that we can enjoy the material comforts of the West without letting go of what we believe is special, the traditional Indian values. He always manages to combine both. “

I’m not sure I agree with that statement. But, it’s a fascinating interview. I’m always so pleased with Leonard Lopate’s questions. Listen.

4) New Ramayana video games forthcoming, from Sony and Virgin Comics. Press Release.

5) “India Develops a Nose for Wine” – a piece by Somini Sengupta in the International Herald Tribune. I was tickled by this piece because just last week, while having dinner with a (non-Indian) friend, I had a conversation that went along the following lines:

Friend: Do Indians drink wine? Is wine an Indian drink?
Me: Not so much.
Friend: So, what would you call an Indian drink?
Me: Whiskey.

I said that because I remember my grandfather with his Black Label.

And, I quote from Sengupta’s piece:

Vijay Kumar Ahuja, a maker of printing materials, said he was drawn to wine when a friend, who happened to be sitting across the table this evening, served it at his daughter’s wedding eight years ago. The following year, Ahuja served wine at his own sons’ weddings. More recently, he took a chance and presented a bottle of Barolo to a high-value business client. Two days later, Ahuja got a call from the man’s wife, thanking him.

Ahuja took that as a sign of changing times. In certain circles, he concluded, good wine makes a difference. Before he would never have considered serving or giving anything but whiskey.

“What whiskey are you serving, that’s what mattered,” Ahuja recalled.

No matter the buzz about wine, Indian taste buds are notoriously hard to change, and Subhash Arora, the founder of the wine club, said he had given up trying to convert the “hard-core whiskey drinker.”

“At the end of the day,” he said, regretfully, “they want the ‘nasha’ ” – Hindi for “intoxication.”

That’s all folks – for today.

In the middle of lots of unpacking (from my trip and recent move), I took a break last night to watch the new Harry Potter flick. Harry Potter and the Order of the Phoenix comes out today, and there are already heaps of reviews out there about it, so I’m not going to try to add to them.

Brief: I enjoyed every minute of it, from the action-packed opening to the near-closing shot of the Converse sneakers hanging from the ceiling. And, I was excited about the neat cast of quality “cameo” appearances (if we can really call them that) — Helena Bonham Carter and Emma Thompson!

It is a pretty dark movie, I’ll agree with the Toronto Star – and deliciously so. While we may not get enough time with “Harry’s mates” Ron and Hermione (as this Washington Post review points out), I do agree that the appearance of Evvana Lynch as the pale and weird witch Luna Lovegood — and her quiet yet intense friendship with Harry – makes up for that in some way . This New York Times review rightly points out:

Evanna Lynch, a pale, wide-eyed 15-year-old nonprofessional from Ireland who, having read the book, decided that no one else could play Luna Lovegood, the weirdest witch at Hogwarts. It seems Ms. Lynch was right. She’s spellbinding.

Pretty in pink evolves into pretty scary in pink with Dolores Umbridge (Ms. Staunton), the stickler representative of the Ministry of Magic who takes over Hogwart’s. Her nervous giggle made me physically squirm in my seat.

And, yes, the special effects were fun and in good doses, but the scene that stood out for me were the OWL exams fireworks spectacle/rebellion. (I can never resist the charm of a good old-fashioned boarding school mutiny against illogical authority!)

So, there we have it. I’ll now try to get on with my day.

Nancy Drew is my quintessential heroine. I grew up reading all the books in the series by Carolyn Keene—The Secret of the Old Clock, The Hidden Staircase, and The Clue of the Broken Locket … She was not just a character in a book to me. She was an adventurer, a good friend and dutiful daughter, a role model. I rooted for her when the going got tough, and cheered for her when she cleverly disengaged herself from sticky and dangerous situations.

That’s why I was so excited to see the movie, Nancy Drew, which opens today. I couldn’t wait to take a trip down memory lane (and neither, apparently, could all the other women who were in the screening room with me!)
But, this Nancy was so very different from the one I know and love … At first, I wasn’t sure I’d be able to adjust to her 21st century representation.

After all, in my mind, Nancy Drew is eternally 17 or 18; tall, elegant, eloquent, a teen who could pass for an adult. Now, imagine the first scene of the film: A very young looking Nancy (Emma Roberts; yes, Julia’s niece) finds herself in the middle of a bank heist in River Heights, manages to convince at least one of the thieves that they should turn themselves in, and cleverly scales down a high wall (unscathed, of course) to the thunderous applause of her hometown groupies and a worried dad Carson Drew (played by Tate Donovan). The local police chief gazes at her in awe, boyfriend Ned Nickerson nearly swoons, and Nancy, a vision of extreme perfection, drives away with her dad.

You’d have a tough time too. You’d ask yourself why the director (Andrew Fleming) couldn’t just have picked a Nancy who was a little older, a Nancy who fit your mental image of her.

But then, the plot takes off. You find out that Nancy is leaving River Heights for a brief stay in Hollywood, that she has rented a house with an unsolved mystery about a famous (and dead) icon actress, and that … she has promised Dad that she will solve no more mysteries. (Ahem, obviously that’s not going to happen. Come on, get a clue!)

Suddenly, a switch goes on in your mind and you become 9 years old again, wanting to embark on an adventure with Nancy, hoping to find secret passageways, needing to figure out who the bad guys are—and how to get them.

That’s what happened to me. Despite my misgivings about Nancy being so very different than I imagined she would be—she seems to be a caricature of my dear friend Nancy—I was sucked into the movie pretty soon.(It helped that I decided to watch the movie as a 12 year old. Once that happened, Emma Roberts also began to grow on me — she’s not really Nancy that I’ve always known, but she is cute and has an on screen presence.)

There’s a mystery to the magic of Nancy Drew. Publishing giant Edward Stratemeyer, who invented her in 1929, probably never would have guessed that she would survive as a cultural icon for decades, and that she would grow and evolve with time, along with her popularity. In Nancy Drew (Get a Clue), Nancy is a 21st century gal. She listens to her iPod while browsing the Internet, looks for clues on IMDB.com, and drives a Hybrid. But, she’s also a traditionalist—canvases homes door-to-door (instead of calling on her cell phone) in search of a key player in her mystery; is CPR-certified; and is polite to boot (she refuses to go over the speed limit even during a car chase and says “excuse me” to the thugs who are after her.)

I must admit that though perturbed by the caricatured version of Nancy that creeped into the film at times, I was also charmed by this contemporary Nancy’s clever ways (bribing a medical records officer with one of Hannah’s home-baked blondies); her kind demeanor (befriending Corky, the miniature and chubby school nerd, with lines such as “I think the ability to sleuth is an attractive quality in women” — adorably played by Josh Flitter); her self-assured, do-good, intelligent manner and her lack of self-consciousness (all qualities rarely represented or applauded in the media today).

In short, I was carried away into the world of my favorite teenage sleuth all over again. (And yet, when Nancy is almost run over by a car and says calmly, “I wonder who tried to kill us,” I couldn’t help but burst into laughter.)

In a way, watching the movie was kind of like reading the Nancy Drew books. You don’t expect much in the way of writing or style, but the story, the plot, and your connection with the character keeps you going. Yes, that’s it. That’s exactly how it was for me. I love Nancy so much that to walk away from her (whether on the page or on the big screen) would be a betrayal of our friendship.

It’s taking guts on my part to say that I got a kick out of watching the movie. But, hey, if Nancy’s got guts, so should I.

After all, it takes guts to be her—a teenage chemistry, French, and detective whiz and perfectionist in a plaid skirt, cardigan sweaters, penny loafers, knee-length socks, and neat tied-back hair—surrounded by fierce fashionistas and Paris Hilton types on Hollywood Boulevard. I say this with certainty because I have just been to Hollywood and strolled down the Walk of Fame. (No kidding, I’m writing this as I sit on my flight back from LA to New York!)

“I like traditional things,” says the teen sleuth extraordinaire in her latest onscreen incarnation. I do too. That’s why I watch this movie till the end, and walk away still cheering for Nancy who knows how to do things her way, knows the importance of helping others (her mottos: “It is important to judge the means and the ends independently in order to know the difference” and “Others first”), and isn’t afraid to be herself.

The silver screen could always use more gutsy girls like this. So, who am I to chew them out? After all, I like traditional things too!

If you are an old-time fan of Nancy Drew, you’ll want to pair this film with:Girl Sleuth: Nancy Drew and the Women Who Created Her, by Melanie Rehak. This book is a fascinating history of the creation of the character Nancy Drew by publishing giant and genius Edward Stratemeyer, who also created the popular boy series Hardy Boys. Stratemeyer recognized girl readers as a real publishing market in the 1920s and developed many series of books for them. In this book, Rehak traces Nancy’s development from concept to writing by focusing on the two women behind her – Harriet Stratemeyer Adams and Mildred Wirt Benson. Viewed from the lens of the changing society of early 20th century America and the developing women’s movement of the time, this book is guaranteed to make you never see Nancy Drew the same way again.

There was a sneak preview of The Golden Compass at Cannes, The Guardian reports. Ooh, I’m so excited to see this movie! Nicole Kidman seems like a perfect choice for Mrs. Coulter, and little Lyra is played by a newcomer, Dakota Blue Richards. [Read the article.]

Also, check out the movie web site. Very cool.

I can’t wax excitement about a movie based on the book without paying homage to its brilliant author. Here’s an interview with Philip Pullman that I particularly appreciated.

“How do you write?” he was asked. “I go to my table and sit down and pick up my pen, and write three sides of narrow-lined A4 paper – and then I stop,” he answered. [Read more.]

And, if you haven’t read The Golden Compass, you have a little over six months to do so before the movie comes along. Hop to it.