The Great Gilly Hopkins

A family film. Gilly is twelve and grows up in foster homes. She has stopped counting how many she has been through; she does the same thing everywhere, causes trouble and waits to be sent on. She is placed in a new house. Maime Trotter is heavy, untidy, warm and very patient; there is a small boy in the house too, and an elderly neighbour comes regularly for dinner. Gilly sets about breaking this house as well. She lies, steals money, is rude to the neighbour and gets into fights at school. The only thing on her mind is her mother. There is a postcard from the woman who left her years ago, and the girl believes that one day she will come and take her. She writes a letter and changes the facts to suit herself. From there the film is about the consequences of that lie. A relative appears and things go the way the girl wanted; the real matter is whether what she wanted is what she wanted. What the narrative is interested in is not the foster system but attachment: Gilly refuses to love because she was sent away from every place she loved, and the film does not explain that to her, it puts her through it. The source is Katherine Paterson's novel; the book stayed on American school lists for a long time. Sophie Nélisse plays Gilly and Kathy Bates plays Trotter. Glenn Close, Julia Stiles, Octavia Spencer and Bill Cobbs are in the cast. Stephen Herek directed. Who it is for: anyone who likes films to watch with children whose subject is heavy but whose tone is mild. Who it is not for: anyone expecting hardness; the adaptation softens the bitter side of the book and ties its ending off too quickly.