My very favorite perk of having two parents in the house again is that occasionally I get to take just one kid out to do some bonding. Today's agenda was "girl time," and my daughter skipped along by my side as we headed out to see Kit Kittredge, an American Girl.

I'm sure you will be totally shocked to learn that I know next to nothing about American Girls; the books, the dolls, nada. That stuff is expensive and I'm sure it's lovely, but it's nothing I was in a position to provide during my years as a struggling single mom. And so we've more or less managed to avoid that whole scene. But we'd seen a preview for the movie and my daughter had begged to see it. ("It's that girl from Nim's Island!" she said, as if that was justification enough.) It's rated G and looked like something I could probably sit through, so I agreed.

Well, Kit lives in Cincinnati during the Great Depression. The predictable heartstring-tugging starts early in the movie and continues throughout. Surprise -- the Depression wasn't a happy time! But darn it, plucky Kit Kittredge is not going to let that get her down! She and her blond wig are going to stay positive!

The only difference between this big-screen production and the made-for-TV American Girl movies that I could see is that they got some big names (Joan Cusack and Stanley Tucci are outstanding, and Julia Ormond gives a strong performance as well) who do manage to keep things lively. Wallace Shawn appears as the grouchy newspaper editor -- I waited the entire film for him to say "Inconceivable!" but he never did -- and Colin Mochrie (of "Whose Line Is It, Anyway?" fame) shows up as a (surprisingly unfunny) hobo. The cast's shining moments are all the more commendable because the plot and script are fairly predictable.

Well, that's my opinion, anyway. My daughter -- who is 10 -- asked a lot of questions about what was happening and seemed to enjoy it very much. I laughed more often than she did (there are plenty of little jokes in there for the parents), but she thought it was "really great" and I tried not to think about how much money I would've saved waiting to rent it on DVD. Fortunately for me, the afternoon with my sweet girl in such a good mood was definitely worth the price of the tickets.

What did others have to say about the movie?

The American Girl Blog gives it a thumbs-up, despite discrepancies:

I would give the movie 3 1/2 stars out of 4. It had a very good plot, but was a bit disappointing that it wasn't a lot like the book.

Aimee at Our Household Happenings was pleasantly surprised:

Last week I took Meagan and Katie to the movies to see "Kit Kittredge an American Girl". It was really well done (especially compared to their tv movies), and I liked the messages in it. American Girl can sometimes be a little too liberal for me (read:feminazis) so I wasn't sure if they would go too far, but I really didn't find anything at all that I didn't like in it.

(American Girl feminazis? Really?)

The Spirited Woman Blogger Team is shaking their pom-poms for all the girls in the film:

Though Kit is the main character in the movie, there are so many great female characters it is a movie every woman should see. It takes place in Cincinnati during the Great Depression. While the men went to Chicago to find work and send money back to their families, it was the women who had to do the real hard work. During the Depression, women took in boarders (which included the housekeeping, cooking and worrying about how to keep the house from falling into foreclosure), grew vegetables and raised chickens to feed everyone and provide emotional comfort by hiding all of their fears from their children.

Over at Chris' Thoughts she's surprised a bit at the tone of the movie given the G rating:

Think of it as the anti-Disney movie. This time the Dad is gone and the mother is who keeps things together.

The plot was pretty heavy for a little kid and I think Courtney didn't get all of it. As a parent, several of the scenes were heartbreaking. Without giving a lot away, I'd say that one of the fears of a parent, especially in this economy, is to not be able to provide for your family and they hit that emotional button several times. It also touched on what the changes were doing to the kids. Again as a parent that was hard to watch.

My daughter is probably at the older end of the target audience for this film, and I don't think any parallels between the Depression and today's economic woes occurred to her at all. It was clear to me from her questions that she found the entire set-up completely foreign and "old-timey." I didn't see any reason to tell her about the recent mortgage crisis or anything (this was Girls' Day Out, not Depress The Hell Out Of Your Kid Day), so although she recognized the desperate times Kit and her ilk were living in, she saw it as something impossible by today's standards.

So, yes, some of it was hard to watch as an adult/parent, but when it was, I watched my kid or ate some more sour gummi worms. (What?)

If you're on the fence about seeing Kit Kittredge, I'd have to say I think there are better movies out there, right now; but if you don't mind a bit of predictable sap, it's not an awful way to pass a couple of hours and do a bit of female bonding.

BlogHer Contributing Editor Mir also blogs about issues parental and otherwise at Woulda Coulda Shoulda, and about the joys of mindful retail therapy at Want Not.