Nancy Drew

So I got stuck going to see this movie as I chaperoned a birthday party. Reviews were pretty dismissive, so wasn't expecting much. I was interested to see how they handled the period, dated aspects of the movie. Ned didn't have a last name (honestly, Nickerson is dated but Ned isn't?). Nancy is described as liking "old-fashioned things," but with the coltish long legs, she can be excused for thinking they look best on her. I thought they made a reasonable effort to acknowledge she isn't up to date and then set the issue aside: she is humiliated at school but the movie doesn't become Mean Girls; rather than get a makeover, she trumps the Mean Girls and stays in her pleated skirts and knee socks. Aside from a few moments of discomfort, she seems to put it out of her mind, and the movie makes rather a joke of her Girl Scout preparedness. But then, I was never a Nancy Drew fan.

Carina Chocano notes the era confusion:

While Nancy, her father and their hometown seem to be suspended somewhere in
the 1940s or '50s, Dehlia Draycott, her house and the mysterious Leshing
seem to belong to the two decades preceding those. We're told that Dehlia
was a star in the '70s and '80s, but her most contemporary get-up is a
flapper dress, and Nancy checks out her movies on a World War II-era
projector. The movie's chronological confusion feels at once like a
tongue-in-cheek postmodern pose and a nod to the difficulty of making a
movie about a character like Nancy in this day and age, but it's telling
that "Nancy Drew" can't quite decide on an era.

This English major couldn't help noting that the name should be Delia or Dahlia, not Dehlia. And Dehlia's movies are in black and white, and not in a Martin Scorsese or Woody Allen kinda way. And the house looks distinctly Sunset Boulevard.

But never mind--it was better than I'd expected. She's smarter than everyone else around her, and aware of it only in a partial way.