Summer Eleven

I rented this movie to watch with my 11 year old as we were going away for the weekend and thought it would be a perfect movie night movie to watch together. It looked heartwarming, entertaining, enjoyable and easy to relate to for my Miss 11. It was the MOST depressing, worst movie we had both seen. My 11 year old who is very easy to please extremely disliked it and at the end of it she even said, "I think that was the worst movie I've ever seen, Mum!" The acting was terrible, the story-line was depressing. Its basically a movie about four 11 year olds and all their problems in their lives. It doesn't even have any life lessons. Pity I hadn't taken another DVD on holiday with me as a back-up!

Well, first off, my IMDb account was created tonight just so I could vote for Summer Eleven.

Yesterday, my daughters saw this movie listed at Redbox and asked to see it; the review mentioned the movie was about four 11-year-olds the summer before entering middle school. I was a little hesitant since my girls are 8 and 6. We watched it together and were moved by the depth of the characters and the richness of their stories. When the movie was over, my 8-year-old and I kept saying, "That was Such a Good Movie!" As soon as my husband got home from work, the three of us couldn't wait to tell him we found a Great movie and to ask if he'd want to watch it the next night. We did. And we loved it even more.

This is a poignant film. I do feel that my girls got a wonderful glimpse into how rich friendship can be, and how compassion can make a difference.

When returning the movie, I wanted to keep it. But then thought, if I did, this wonderful gem wouldn't be available to the next patron. My family one day will have this in our movie library.

Eleven is the age of the four girls in Summer Eleven, however, one need not only be young in years to enjoy it.

It's the summer before middle school for Vanessa, Lizzie, Jess, and Peri-- four school friends--but that's not all they have to think about. Each girl faces her own challenge to tackle, challenges relatable to the audience, perhaps. All while staying together and soaking up the summer sun.

While the protagonists are 4 ten and eleven-year old girls, some of the issues that they face could be a little suggestive for younger children. Nevertheless, adults and older children will reminisce about their vacation days, and may find some traits in the girls to compare themselves to.

A low-budget film, but a fine one, in my opinion.

I actually loved this movie. I was just browsing through netflix when I came across this. I thought that it would be an easy going pre-teen based movie, where the girls get up to girly things. I thought it would be similar to 'An American Girl' movies, which I like to watch. However it was completely different. The movie didn't require a high budget or A-list actors to tell a good story about little girls experiencing big world problems. I really enjoyed the movie and thought that it was really gripping. All the girls were very nice to each other which also inspired me. They dealt with their problems in a very appropriate way which I admired.

For what it is, it's perfect. It's not pretentious or sentimental or trying to be something it isn't. It makes no claim to be a film for kids as far as I can see, it's just a film about kids, facing real life situations, and managing them well. The adult players are integral to the story and there's a nice balance between the kids playing with other kids, and interacting with their far from perfect parents.

It scores high because it deals with happiness, sadness, success and grief in a realistic way, not getting bogged down with sentimentality or ramming 'important lessons' down our throats. I don't see why kids around the same age as the stars couldn't watch this, but as I said it certainly doesn't set out to be a film for kids. It's by no means hard-hitting, more quaint than edgy.

These four girls are all little stars and I'm surprised to see none of them have appeared in another movie. What their character show is is although we don't live in a perfect world, we can make our world perfect. Well done all of you :)