Madeline Carroll & Callan McAuliffe  in the movie Flipped

If teaching our children to treat their friends, neighbors and fellow humans with some kindness were a snap, we wouldn't devour books such as "Flipped," the 2001 young adult favorite by Wendelin Van Draanen. It's about the complicated relationship between two kids, Juli and Bryce, and their intertwined lives between the second and eighth grade, as they careen in and out of one-sided crushes, jealousies, affection, dawning respect and something like love. Something like it. We don't know anything about anything at that age, and yet we know everything.

The story should have made for charming results on screen. Instead -- and I truly don't enjoy saying so -- co-adapter and director Rob Reiner's picture lands somewhere between synthetic nostalgia and the texture of real life. The kids certainly are up to it; Madeline Carroll's Juli and Callan McAuliffe's Bryce have all the right stuff, the emotional directness, to make us care. The adult cast includes the formidable John Mahoney as Bryce's granddad, who helps Bryce to see what he's been missing. So why does "Flipped" (which has its ardent fans) feel to me like a good try, as opposed to a good film?

Partly it's the horsey mechanics of the thing. Taking Van Draanen's he said/she said story out of its original modern day setting and back into the late 1950s and early '60s, Reiner lays on the honey-coated atmosphere and races around to establish Juli's industrial-strength crush, her loving bohemian family (Aidan Quinn and Penelope Ann Miller play her folks) and the flip side of it all, across the street. There, Bryce's seemingly picture-perfect parents (played by Rebecca De Mornay and, overdoing the character's inner boorishness, Anthony Edwards) stand in stark opposition to Juli's world. As the kids enter junior high, they have an increasingly tough time separating their former preteen selves from the people they're becoming. Juli realizes Bryce isn't perfect. Bryce realizes Juli is more than an aggravator in pigtails.

The script, co-written by Andrew Scheinman, relies on voice-over narration the way a fish relies on water. Perhaps there was no other way to adapt "Flipped" for the movies. Perhaps, though, it would've been worth looking for one.

We're a long way tonally from the sinister backdrop of "Stand by Me," Reiner's 1986 coming-of-age yarn based on Stephen King's "The Body," but the comparisons are inevitable. Re-watching "Stand by Me" the other day, I was struck at how straightforward yet pleasing Reiner's pacing and camera placement are in that film, whether you love the material or not. By contrast, "Flipped" is all postcards and Lasse Hallstrom sunsets, and it never calms down or settles into itself. Serious matters are addressed, such as Juli's institutionalized brother, but the movie struggles to resolve its mood swings.

If it clicks with audiences, I suspect it'll be because of Carroll, who really is a fine young actress and doesn't push a single scene. Even when her cohorts do.

 

The movie "Flipped" is rated PG (for language and some thematic material).

Running time: 1:30.

"Flipped" Cast: Madeline Carroll (Juli); Callan McAuliffe (Bryce); Rebecca De Mornay (Patsy); Anthony Edwards (Steven); John Mahoney (Chet); Penelope Ann Miller (Trina); Aidan Quinn (Richard).

"Flipped" Film Credits: Directed by Rob Reiner; written by Reiner and Andrew Scheinman, based on the novel by Wendelin Van Draanen; produced by Reiner and Alan Greisman. A Warner Bros. Pictures release.

Flipped Movie Review - Madeline Carroll & Callan McAuliffe