The poster for Ramona and Beezus is a little deceiving. On it, Ramona Quimby (Joey King) and her older sister Beezus (Selena Gomez), hug, smile, and look directly at the viewer as if posing for the world’s most processed family portrait, practically an advertisement for clean clothes and smiling. Not misleading, perhaps, but not reflective of the emotional range of either the film or these two particular characters, who are for the most part faithful to Beverly Cleary’s original novels. The film conveys that same spirit; however, it does not seem fully comfortable with it, dressing up its proceedings with all the trappings of a sitcom and thus blunting some of the Ramona Quimby’s inherent personality. It’s a shame, because given the amount of cnergy and cheer already on display, one can’t help but feel that the film missed an opportunity to reach outside of its natural target audience and create something a little more lasting.
Less a plot-driven narrative than a series of both fortunate and unfortunate events, Ramona and Beezus finds Ramona struggling to reconcile her creative outlook on life with the realistic demands of the world that seem to have been placed on everyone else around her. In particular, her teacher (Sandra Oh) doesn’t appreciate her ‘innovative’ spellings of words or her tendency to disrupt class. Luckily her parents (John Corbett and Bridget Moynahan) are generally understanding, but when her father loses his job, it seems likely that she’ll have to move away from her house and her friend Howie (Jason Spevack). Meanwhile overachieving Beezus (a mispronunciation of Beatrice that unfortunately stuck into her teenage years) has problems of her own, mostly involving growing pains of the boy kind and the general frustrations of having a little sister that you have to share a room with. Also living with them is Aunt Bea (Ginnifer Goodwin), who may be rekindling a flame with her old high school boyfriend Hobart (Josh Duhamel), who is soon to be moving to Alaska.
Soon after finding out that their father lost his job, Ramona asks Beezus if they’re going to be poor now, as they lay awake in their room unable to sleep. The moment is more than a little jarring, largely because it feels like something that a child would actually ask under the circumstances. At another point, Beezus pointedly asks who could possibly love someone with a nickname like hers. The benefit of age has let most of us know that there are far bigger obstacles to meaningful relationships than that, but still, it’s a melodramatic statement that firmly grips the hyper-attuned melodrama of being sixteen. There are a number of these moments, and they are well-integrated into what is otherwise a rather uninterrupted stream of female bonding and family togetherness. With a less charming ensemble, this could have been fairly grating, but the two leads, if not especially distinguished, are passable, and do convey both the irritation and the sorority inherent to being girls trapped under the same roof. They would most likely be lost, however, without the reliable adults backing them up (particularly Goodwin and Corbett), who manage to make their relationships with the girls seem believable without ever sinking to pandering or condescension.
For those who remember the original books (or at least saw the illustrations on the covers), you will probably remember Ramona Quimby as a freckle-faced girl with an exceedingly short haircut and a perplexed expression plastered to her face at all times. This could hardly be further from the way that she is portrayed here (even during a scene when Ramona has supposedly ruined her hair, it’s clearly had more work done on it than most people get in a week), and it goes along way towards exemplifying the hindrances placed on the film by its makers (or more likely the studio). Given the natural chemistry that most of the actors seem to have with one another, it’s a shame that they weren’t allowed to look more like regular people that you might see on the street, or live in a house that seemed cut from any given primetime sitcom on ABC. While a certain amount of set dressing is to be expected from any major theatrical release, in this case, it seems to have prevented the realization of a film that could have appealed to people who wouldn’t naturally be inclined towards family films, or even, dare it be suggested, boys. Given the broad spectrum that received Cleary’s books, it hardly seems out of the question.
Blu-ray Bonus Features
The Blu-ray release of the film also contains several deleted scenes, a gag reel, several featurettes, including “Show & Tell Film School”, “My Ramona With Author Beverly Cleary”, “A Day In The Life of Joey King”, Selena and Joey’s audition footage, a Fox Movie Channel special with director Elizabeth Allen, a theatrical trailer, and a few sneak peek trailers.
"Ramona and Beezus" is on sale November 9, 2010 and is rated G. Children & Family. Directed by Elizabeth Allen. Written by Laurie Craig, Nick Pustay, Beverly Cleary (novels). Starring Bridget Moynahan, Ginnifer Goodwin, John Corbett, Josh Duhamel, Sandra Oh, Selena Gomez, Joey King.
