Saku_Tatsuya I grew up being forced to watch this film, quite simply because my siblings adored it and I ended up having to watch it with them whether I like it or not.Now the story is simple and straight foreward- a young girl spies on other people and writes about their flaws in a notebook she carries with her everywhere but her fun in spying is soon foiled when the other kids read the notebook and thus begin to lash out onto her. The class gets their revenge on her and she gets revenge back and she ends up apologizing for her actions.Even when I was like eight or nine when I first saw the film, I never felt bad for Harriet. Why? Simply because this definitely was not a victim-less situation where "oh, poor Harriet everyone is picking on her; let's pity her!" comes to mind. Heck no, in fact I ended up feeling more sorry for some of the people she got back at. Sure, the bullies were harsh but what she did was over the line. I didn't even feel sorry for her in the first place because she had it coming the entire time that she was spying, writing notes in her book and writing rather negative conclusions about other people. Had it not been for her "greater than thou" attitude, I would have appreciated the story a lot better.Speaking of her "greater than thou" attitude, am I the only one who was always bothered by her revenge scene? She simply could've been the bigger person to actually realize that her nosey habits and attitude were the problem, not just other people. However, no, we follow a rather immature brat who instead of taking responsibility goes as far as using verbal abuse and cutting off someone's long braid off for her own petty "revenge"; even though she was asking for it the moment she chose to bring the book everywhere.2/10

covergirl10452 After seeing this movie, Harriet the Spy, I have to admit it was something. Harriet spies a lot, writes down what she learns and observe, and wants to be something in life. Too bad her friends snooped in her notebook and she got exposed. I felt bad for her after everybody found out her private thoughts and hated her for it. Sometimes kids can be relentless. I felt worse when the kids became spy catchers and interfered with her spying, including her own friends Sport and Janie. I also cannot believe they went and got blue paint all over her. I knew after that bitch Marion poured paint in her hair and got slapped in the face for it, that was going to be it. Harriet wasn't lying when she told them she was going to get them real bad, and she did. As I watched her get back at the kids that did cruel things to her, I was cracking up, especially when Laura got nailed by an unexpected haircut. Too bad for Beth's pictures she posted. Harriet vandalized them. Time to throw them away. When Carrie was looking for her bra, it wasn't pretty when she realized that bra Harriet put on a pole was hers. And look how bad Pinky and Janie's projects turned out after Harriet tampered with them. Mostly, I felt worse for Marion and Sport when Harriet said something false about her father to Marion to make her cry like crazy and when Harriet humiliated Sport in front of the whole school by posting an embarrassing picture of him. He was so broken hearted. that was going way too far and was really low even for her. Not just her, all of them. Well, I am glad Harriet's nanny, Golly, gave her advice on what to do. I am even more glad everybody forgave her and left that club Marion and Rachel invented. Besides, even though Marion may have edited the newspaper for 3 years, her writing wasn't as good. She just threw in something and got credit for it. But Harriet knows what she is talking about as the editor of the newspaper now. People are interested and they aren't laughing. You know why? Because it all makes sense. The kids get the point. Harriet had details that made sense. Marion just threw in anything, just so she could get what she wanted. That girl acted like a brat when Harriet suggested it was time to change the person who's editor. She learned that it always doesn't have to be about her, especially at the pageant. Her dancing was all right, but boring. Harriet and her friends fast and active dancing was awesome. Plus, kids really got their groove on when they were limboing on stage, especially Marion, Harriet and her friends. Also, I am relieved that Harriet got back to her spy route after she was forgiven. She is to do what she does best again and put it in article form for the newspaper.

irishm If I had seen this movie on its own, I would probably have no strong opinion of it. I can see how children would like it, and it's not "bad" in and of itself. However, as an adaptation of my favorite book from childhood, it's very disappointing, and that's why I rate it as I do. Perhaps "Harriet the Spy" was never suited for updating to the late 20th century. And it's a difficult thing to adapt to film, since so much of the text takes place inside Harriet's head and in the pages of her notebook. This book and I are about the same age and I'd like to see it done again as a period piece, with more attention paid to casting and less to the swirly 1990's camera work. It's simple: look at the author's illustrations in the book, and find actors who look like that. Eartha Kitt can be wonderful, but she's no Agatha Plummer… what about Angela Lansbury? Or Rue McClanahan? The worst choice of all was Rosie O'Donnell as Ole Golly. (To indulge in a little fantasy casting, I'd love to have seen the late Nancy Kulp as Ole Golly; I think she would have done a wonderful job.) Oh well. It is what it is, and your mileage will vary. I don't think Louise Fitzhugh would have been pleased, and I know I wasn't.

tedg This little film has been roundly criticized for being disjointed and amateurish. Well, it _is_ disjointed: part of it is surreal allegory, part realistic morality play. Part of it moves with a natural rhythm while other parts seem to have been transplanted from afternoon TeeVee. Some is done with a cartoon cosmology, and the rest is straight from Marlo Thomas' heart. Distributed throughout are mottles of bad acting and unconsidered dialog.And I loved it all. Why?Because this is in the tradition of movies and books that generate themselves. Rather, the characters in the stories play double duty as the authors of the story and the creators of the world that surrounds it. So it makes sense as precisely what a preteen would imagine her older self writing about her. Indeed, the whole thing is a meditation on how someone might abstract the world (for writing) without a mature faculty for abstraction — which is to say how a kid would imagine an adult's mind imagining a kid's mind.Its all about the deep problems of writing. I imagine the author of the original book sitting down and having trouble writing, them ruminating about why on the page.Therefore, we have a youthful experimenter, a blocked writer, a "gardener" who makes environments from trash, another maker of environments (cages) who craves companionship, a woman who lives in a cage (Kitt), the Dad who is a movie comedian, together with lesser characters.And the spy who spies so she can write what we see. It is all about sight and callow abstraction, just what movies were made for. Sure, it differs from the book because film can amplify what the book cannot. The adapter (the guy that did the game as life as game "Jumanji" project) understood this.Ted's Evaluation -- 3 of 3: Worth watching.