InsaneJournal

Chriss Stands Strong: Multimedia Movie Review


It’s not that bad. Sammi Hanratty, who plays Chrissa, is very talented and charming and adorable. She’s getting a lot of work on other projects and tv shows. I could’ve sworn she’d been in another AG movie but I looked it up and her IMDB profile doesn’t mention it. I haven’t read Chrissa’s book, so I had no chance to get to know the character the way I did with Samantha and Nellie, so it’s a credit to the actress that she imbued this one shot character created to sell dolls (who has only existed for a few months) with a fully fleshed out and appealing personality.





The rest of the actors are pretty decent, I’m actually a little disturbed at how believably intimidating and psycho the bully, Tara, was. Maybe the actress is much older than she looks? According to IMDB, Sammi Hanratty was in seventh grade at the time of filming, so maybe the other girls are older than their characters too (I believed they all were their characters, I believed their motivations, I did not believe those characters were ten).

Tara bullies Trevor at swim practice
Tara steals the permission slips

That must be it, because she gives Chrissa’s brother this…look earlier on that is far too old for a ten year old girl. I tried to screencap it but it didn’t work out so well, so I left that one out.

They made an effort to include cast members of a variety of sizes. Most of the girls are healthy looking and one or two are even rather chubby (Amanda, the friend Chrissa left behind, and also many extras).



Frankly, the unbelievable part of the story is that it’s about a school where severe bullying is going on, and the teachers not only acknowledge that it is happening but do something about it.

The bullying issue is handled extremely well. This *is* the age group where bullying is worst and most common, for one thing, so that makes it easy to identify with the characters. I know, everyone talks about how bad high school is but high school has some redeeming qualities. Middle school is worse because you can’t drive, get a job, smoke, choose your classes, buy your own food and clothing with your own money, go on real and unsupervised dates and join a much wider variety of teams and clubs. High school has bullying too, but there are more ways to avoid the general bullies (not so much bullying among your own friends/clubs) and when you can’t, there are more outlets to express your feelings. Plus, you only have four years before you never have to see any of those people ever again, which is not true of much younger grades. People who bully in high school usually started a long time before that, and victims became victims long before that as well.

Middle school/ages 11-13 is the time when puberty is just hitting, and you’re making that uncomfortable transition between little kid and teenager. Some kids are more ready than others, and the ones who are physically ready first are not always the ones mentally or emotionally ready. The first kid to hit puberty will be ridiculed rather than admired. It’s the time when you’re choosing who you’ll be for the next seven to nine years and it’s a fight to the death when friends are being ripped apart because some people are teenagers and other people are still little kids. Boys get a little more time, but girls are in a place where their actions will cement what kind of woman they’re going to become.




There’s a really horrifying “Cold Case” episode based around this theme, entitled “The Sleepover”. The flashbacks took place in 1990*, and it’s about this dorky little girl whose best friend is somewhat cooler and has a chance at an “in” with the Queen Bee and after all the girls engage in what has to be The Worst Sleepover EVER, the best friend kills the little dork. Later, she confesses she did it because “I didn’t know you lived through it” (IT being middle school/the tween years).

“Chrissa Stands Strong” is also very good at portraying the dynamics between girls in general and the specifically unique way girls can be mean. AND the way bullies really do operate, such as in this scene

the horrible locker room scene

Gwen’s homelessness really isn’t a major plot point. It’s a story about bullying, and that’s one reason why Gwen is bullied. Apparently in the movie, she’s not even living in a car, she’s living in a homeless shelter.

I hadn’t realized Gwen plays the violin.

The girls in the movie are shown wearing some outfits from the AG inventory, especially this one and this one (in people size), plus various other outfits that look like they could easily be available from the catalogue even if they actually aren’t. A lot of other clothing items look like they may possibly have been hand knitted, which makes sense, Chrissa’s into things like that and I’d imagine many of the mothers of her friends are too. Gwen seems to wear little but gray and white and pale mauve, as if she is a ghost.



I like the palette they used, although the outfits worn by the “cool” girls are disturbingly, disturbingly 80s, even “Tara’s” hair is a bit too teased and spiked in the “cutting off Gwen’s bangs” scene. I have come to accept that kids are really into the retro 80s clothing, but I’d hoped the hair wouldn’t come back with it!





The Sonali doll (which I have ordered) has very different hair from the actress in the movie. For one thing, the doll’s hair is a lot longer, and lacks the sort of chunky layers the actress wears. The doll’s Meet outfit (a knitted blue and green tunic, green and blue ballet flats and denim capris) is the same one she wears in a big scene at the end.




The movie ends with a kind of lame song that sounds like it belongs on a really sappy and low budget children’s show, but the last scene is one that’s easily skipped (or muted).

Goofs and Gaffs? After Chrissa fishes her clothing out of the garbage (where Tara has hidden them after swim practice), she has returned home and is doing homework at the dining room table, wearing the clothing she had to rescue from the garbage.

What kind of middle class semi rural Minnesota school has a fourth and fifth grade swim team, especially one that operates in the winter? I think I heard someone say in the movie that they practice at a local YMCA type place, it’s the only thing that makes sense when you wonder how high local taxes must be in order to pay to heat that gigantic indoor pool throughout Minnesota’s long and harsh winters *and* provide that huge team of kids with matching swimsuits, equipment, and matching warm up outfits.


**interesting trivia: "The Sleepover” was directed by Emilio Estevez.


ETA *again*: Someone has done a stop motion animation version using their American Girl dolls. It's amazing.