"Little Sweetheart" is an extremely suspenseful and very odd movie, basically--- it's not handled that perfectly, that's some problem. As the third time I saw it, I noticed many things which didn't make sense to me, about the development of the plot, mainly. Also some of the suspense was gone, but I still enjoyed it much and I'm surely seeing it again.
The *little sweetheart* is called Thelma, is nine years old, and goes to a boarding school where *the others* don't like her, as we learn from herself. In the summer, she lives at some vacation place with her careless and rather stupid, widowed mother and her brother - rather a cartoon in a would-be mother-teenager-conflict, sorry film makers! She makes friends with another girl her age, Elizabeth. The both of them meet a pair of gangsters, played by John Hurt and Karen Young. Hurt seems to like Thelma, while his *mistress* Young sees her as a rival. She's so mad at the girl that it's only ridiculous. However, she seems to be kind of right, when Thelma decides that the two girls blackmail the pair. The blackmailing is no big deal and no big movie making - but it's only the prelude...
In some moments this movie is really chilling and eerie, because of its absurd and disturbing events and possibilities. I won't judge if the events in this movie are realistic enough, so that they could really take place, but the movie illustrates how kids are always underestimated in our society. Regarded as *cute*, *innocent*, *dull*, *can't do no harm*, they're not taken seriously. Therein lies the intelligence and the irony of the movie: To what point the kid may be *evil* and spoiled, she remains the good guy in a way, as she is just a little girl. And John Hurt is the bad guy, though he's probably the nicest character in the film.
There's one rather fake dialogue with Thelma speaking to Elizabeth. But as her brother tells us, the kid has been loafing around in front of the TV all her life, so that may explain much. The un-known young actress, Cassie Barasch, is very cute and smart in the film, so that you want to like her, on the other hand she acts her character spoiled enough that you want to hate her. Good job! Which part of you is likely to win?
Not a too caring piece of art, nor deeply psychologically analytic, but a convincing, entertaining, suspenseful film with an extraordinary story and a little ironical humor. 8 out of 10!
"Watch me!"
