Born in Germany, grew up in North America, lived all over Europe, and am a Swiss (Naturalized) and did not know the story of Heidi. My wife said, "don't you remember the cartoons?" Answer: NO.
It is an excellent movie and being German (born near Frankfurt) / Swiss dual citizen, I actually truly appreciated its reality and adherence to the people and the land. While others may say, "oh where is this", this movie paid attention to how people were of that time. I was surprised by that.
The story itself might not be accurate the the cartoons, but as my wife says, "you know it is a story right?" Well, and here is the thing the movie is very true to the original story, and not the cartoons.
Swiss appreciated the movie because they did not use a German dialect throughout the entire movie. They used a true Swiss dialect when appropriate.
So does the movie skip? Sure, it does, but it only has 2 hours to cover a complicated story. They decided to focus on the main parts of the original story and did a very good job.
