Jeanskynebu the audience applauded

Contentar Best movie of this year hands down!

Aneesa Wardle The story, direction, characters, and writing/dialogue is akin to taking a tranquilizer shot to the neck, but everything else was so well done.

Ariella Broughton It is neither dumb nor smart enough to be fun, and spends way too much time with its boring human characters.

HotToastyRag American Girl dolls were a huge staple of my childhood; I collected seven historical dolls and still keep them on display in my room. I have drawers of outfits and accessories, and virtually my entire closet is full of furniture pieces for them. Cookbooks, games, and novels—and now, in the modern era, there are lots of movies to go along with the historical collection! In An American Girl Holiday, Samantha moves in with her grandmother and meets Nellie.If you know about the dolls, you know Samantha is the Victorian doll, whose story takes place at the turn of the century, and Nellie is her impoverished friend. AnneSophia Robb, in her debut film, gives a great performance as Samantha. She's a real doll come to life! Mia Farrow plays her grandmother, and it's easy to imagine her popping right out of the books' illustrations. Of all the American Girl movies, this one is my favorite. Felicity's film is a close second, but this one gives me an extra fuzzy feeling inside because it takes place during Christmas. Dig your dolls out from the attic—or take them down from display in your room—and watch this Christmas American Girl delight!

bababear We rented this for our granddaughters (first and fourth graders) and I hadn't planned to watch it. But after a couple of minutes I was hooked.This is a major surprise. I expected it to be sugar coated fluff. Instead, the fine screenplay by Marsha Norman gives an amazingly strong subtext to a story about American life in 1904.America is entering the "modern" age and inventions such as the telephone and automobile are starting to change the fabric of the country. Samantha is an orphan living with her grandmother in a small town on the Hudson River.Her uncle comes home with the young lady he'll eventually marry. She's a supporter of votes for women, a rather daring position at the time.The people next door hire on a family as servants, and the small children work all day and aren't sent to school. Samantha becomes friends with one and teaches her how to read.In the fall Samantha goes to New York City to stay for a while with her uncle and new aunt. Eventually her young eyes are opened to the harsh reality of factories that make children work in hazardous conditions for low wages.Not surprisingly, there's a happy ending. It snows on Christmas Day and the plot points are neatly ties up. But along the way there's an examination of class structure, women's rights, child labor laws and compulsory education for children, and the early roots of labor unions and feminism.Interestingly enough, the film I kept comparing this with was Martin Scorsese's THE AGE OF INNOCENCE. The two would make an interesting double feature.

TxMike Cute young actress AnnaSophia Robb is Samantha, smart, well-adjusted, even though bot her parents died and now she lives with her grandmother in a small town in New York state. Her grandmother is Mia Farrow as Grandmary Edwards.Times are hard in the early 1900s, and a new family arrives next door, a man and his 3 young daughters. But they aren't the homeowners, they are hired as servants. The mother had died recently, and now dad and the 3 daughters worked hard, morning to night, for their keep. They knew no other option. Without schooling none of them could read or write.One of the girls, cute Kelsey Lewis as Nellie O'Malley, was Samantha's age, and they became immediate best friends. Samantha managed to teach Nellie to read and write. They were having a grand time.But things changed when Samantha's uncle showed up with his fiancée, and when they were married they asked to have Samantha live with them in New York City. While there she learned Nellie's dad got sick and died so the three were sent to an orphanage.The whole movie has a real feel to it for the times, and it tells a very touching story of friendship.SPOILERS: The orphanage is also in NYC, and Samantha and her new family look the kids up. It turns out the orphanage is being run more like a prison and, when Samantha finds out Nellie will be sent off and her two sisters left at the orphanage, she devises a plan to break them out and hide them in her attic. They are eventually found out, but in the process the wicked director of the orphanage is found out and fired, and in the best possible of endings, Samantha's uncle and aunt decided to adopt all of them, an instant family of 6!

krzykra Obviously, the target audience for a movie like this is young girls who love the American Girls Collection. But within that, it is a thoroughly enjoyable treat, made specifically for kids but not at all the sort of movie that will drive grown-ups crazy.The story is sweet and simple, but heartwarming, about a rich little girl named Samantha growing up in 1904. The script takes the various adventures from the Samantha books in the American Girls Collection, from Samantha's friendship with servant girl Nellie to the wedding of Uncle Gard and Aunt Cornelia to Samantha's speaking contest at her school in New York City, and blends them together in a very satisfying way- sure to please any girl who has the doll or has read the books! And perhaps what makes this "kid's movie" more appealing to the entire family is the inclusion of the historic happenings of 1904 America, when the motor car was an exciting new invention and the Suffrage movement had begun. This is, of course, the basis of the American Girls Collection and it's a wonderful way to bone up on your history and be entertained at the same time (hey, I didn't know that's when showers were invented!).AnnaSophia Robb, who plays the title role, is quite a familiar face to family audiences, having starred as Opal in Because of Winn-Dixie and as the infamous gum-chewing, girl-turned-blueberry Violet Beauregarde in Tim Burton's Charlie and the Chocolate Factory. AnnaSophia is a very talented young actress, and she plays the role of Samantha with a nice combination of sweetness and spunk (and she's cute without being cutesy, which is always a relief for the grown-ups). In fact, most of the cast is stellar, and Jordan Bridges (son of Beau Bridges) plays fun-loving Uncle Gard with a blend of charm and realism. Surprisingly enough, Mia Farrow, who plays Samantha's proper Grandmary and is undoubtedly the most famous performer in the lineup, is a trifle stilted and seems to be upstaged by the rest of the troop.The fact that there are only two or three males in the entire show indicates that this is not really a boy's movie (I'm a grown-up boy, so I have permission to watch these kinds of movies and not be embarrassed anymore). Still, this is terrific family entertainment, for girls who love the American Girls, and for anyone who loves to walk away from a movie feeling good!