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
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