Normally I steer well clear of films that are made for young children and for little girls as this one obviously was but once in a while you can be pleasantly surprised and this was one of those occasions. This film is magic and unlike a lot of children's films made nowadays it was not covered in so much sweetness that it was overpowering. Madeline,played superbly by Hatty Jones in her only film to date,is a little girl, who lives in a school run by a nun, along with a lot of other little girls. When the owner of the school threatens to shut down the school and sell it Madeline and her friends come up with daring schemes to repel future owners of the establishment. The movie has plenty of humorous moments including an hysterical meal scene involving a dead chicken called Fred. Children don't need films filled with innuendo or heavily coated with saccharin they need films that remind them what it is like to be a child and the wondrous magic that that involves.This is such a movie.It is a film that any parent would feel is perfectly safe for a child to watch without supervision. The only minor problem,as my wife pointed out,is the occasional switch from English to french which younger children might find confusing. That aside this a delicious children's movie that can be enjoyed by the whole family time and time again
Review of Madeline
