I was left utterly appalled to see what the scriptwriters and actors of this Disney film adaptation had done to Nancy Drew, the heroine in some of my favourite books through the latter years of primary school. Quite frankly, anyone who has read the books will find her character mutilated in this film.
This film sees eighteen-year-old Nancy Drew starting university with her best friends Bess and George when she is drawn into the mystery of how Jesse, an up-and-coming American football player, is left comatose. Her instincts telling her there is much more to the story than meets the eye, Nancy's investigations should lead her into trouble with the police and the university officials.
What was the premise for a film that could entice new readers to the books ended up just a mess and I could see intelligent young girls never wanting to see any more of Nancy Drew again after this. The tenacious, bright but modest Nancy from the novels had mutated into a egotistical, obnoxious, conceited snob who desperately needed to be taken down a peg or two before her head swelled too much. Clearly, the character had been dumbed down by a scriptwriter who assumed these were qualities young girls wanted to idolise. I lost count of the number of times people commented that Nancy had 'spunk' when all she really had was arrogance. And what was with the multi-million dollar bank account she clearly had access to (her car was not exactly what you'd see the average teen driving around) when what made Nancy so interesting was the fact she was a normal 'every' girl. Meanwhile, we had two air-headed bimbos in the form of Bess and George. Heath Freeman was completely miscast in the role of Patrick Daly, the detective heading the enquiry into Jesse's incident. He looked all of twenty-five yet we are meant to believe he ranks so high in the police force (if so, they must have ten-year-olds recruited as uniformed officers).
This film wasn't 'Nancy Drew of the twenty-first century', it was 'Nancy Drew, dumbed down' and it failed miserably as an adaptation. Hollywood scriptwriters need to go back to studying how to adapt young female characters and learn that there is no need to sex them up purely to appeal to kids as the original, more understated qualities of the characters in the novels were what made them so appealing in the first place. Those who want a more intelligent investigative film aimed at younger viewers should check out 'A Series of Unfortunate Events' or 'From the Mixed-Up Files of Mrs. Basil E. Frankweiler' instead.
