SeeQuant Blending excellent reporting and strong storytelling, this is a disturbing film truly stranger than fiction

Invaderbank The film creates a perfect balance between action and depth of basic needs, in the midst of an infertile atmosphere.

Hadrina The movie's neither hopeful in contrived ways, nor hopeless in different contrived ways. Somehow it manages to be wonderful

Teddie Blake The movie turns out to be a little better than the average. Starting from a romantic formula often seen in the cinema, it ends in the most predictable (and somewhat bland) way.

madpigmadpig There is nothing remotely uplifting, redeeming, or inspiring about this film - although that was supposedly the intention.Nevermind the bad acting, poor editing, and abysmal directing. It's the writing that kills it dead. Firstly, the method they use to show the daughter as being independent-minded is her smoking with two boys in a bathroom stall. This really only shows her to be self-destructive, and actually kind of dependent on peer pressure. Also. . . kids smoking in a Disney movie? The man with the mouse would not approve.Secondly, both the father and daughter in the movie are a pair of bona fide s@#$s. The father decides it's perfectly alright to leave his brainless, self-destructive daughter with a self-obsessed landlady who (no surprise here) kicks her out as he skips merrily off to the other side of the country. Oh, and this is after he spends the day looking for her because apparently he in no way keeps tabs on his pre-teen daughter in downtown Depression Era Chicago. This is someone for whom we're supposed to feel empathy and/or admiration?When the daughter, Natty, sets out on her own, she abandons a dog she adopted a couple scenes before. Like careless father like careless daughter? Then she lets a large, snarling, blood-soaked dog escape loose into a town after it wins a dog fight. I was actually almost glad when a random guy slapped her for doing it. I wanted to slap her myself at that point. The dog predictably shows up snarling and barking at her in the next scene, but sadly it doesn't end the film then and there by mauling her to death as a lesson to viewers not to release trained weapon-dogs into the world. Eventually, Natty avoids starving by the sheer luck that the dog brings her food and basically decides to adopt her.After the next part, wherein the dog guides her to an a-hole farmer and his pregnant wife - followed by the obvious upcoming implication that the dog would get blamed for an attack on the farmer's chickens - I just couldn't stand to watch anymore. The stupidity and endless pettiness of the writing became overwhelming.Oh and, by the way, girls from that era (even inner city girls) didn't swear that freely.All this said, the art direction and costuming is excellent. The cinematography is good, too. What a waste.

Muskrat36 Watching any five minutes of this film you would be enough to recognise it as a Disney production. If you want to watch a good old fashioned boy with dog , or in this case girl with wolf, film, then you could do no better than this. Made in 1985, it could easily have been made 20 years earlier. I don't suppose older children would appreciate a film like this now, but if you are under 8 or over 40, then tuck into this wholesome feast. I gave it a 9, not because of any brilliance in the script, but because it is a perfect example of its type. Don't expect any surprises. Meredith Salinger is so good as the young runaway, however, that it set me wondering what she would have done with better material.

eeb215 My father wrote this script in 1982 and pitched it to a development executive at Disney. In his version, most of the story was the same, with the difference that the girl who dressed as a boy and rode the boxcars in the 1930s was running away from her father, not to him.I have read the original script my father pitched to Disney and it is virtually the same, just less Disney (no dog, for example).If you check out the screenwriter, Jeanne Rosenberg, you will see she specializes in sequels and adaptations. This was NOT her original work, and I challenge her to claim it was (I have nothing against her - I am confident she was simply given the basic plot and told to write the screenplay, and accuse her of nothing that could be construed as unethical).It was my father's great misfortune to have had this happen in the days when no L.A. lawyer in his/her right mind would sue the Walt Disney Corporation. That has since changed, but 25 years ago it was universally understood that taking Disney to court was an exercise in futility.Check my father out on IMDb: Bert Brown. He's a legitimate producer, not some crackpot with a grudge, and has no idea I am posting this message. I hope someone can put me in touch with Jeanne Rosenberg or the development exec. who headed up this film in order to set the record straight.email: [email protected]

staisil2 This is a nice movie about a courageous girl just trying to get to her father, with a little help from friends, and even more enemies. Meredith Salenger was perfect for the part of Natty Gann. She's cute, tough, and just a good actress. (So, how then did shwe go into movies such as Dream a Little Dream?) John Cusack, as always is a doll. This is a good movie for eveybody. 7.2 out of 10.