The Babysitters Club

[StevePulaski]

The babysitters in The Babysitters Club.

Rating: 2½/4 stars.

For a movie close to home and with girls near my age group I expected there to be characters I could relate too and characters I can practically replace the names of the people with people I knew. That wasn't the case. These girls are probably the most stereotypical stock teenagers Ive seen in any movie. All of which have some sort of quality making them blend in, none standing out. That's not a horrible thing, but the only girl I found I was making connection to was Mary Ann Spier (Rachel Leigh Cook). She was a shy, good listening, and sensitive girl. One I could really see myself relating and hanging out with. Pretty much the good girl, stays out of trouble and popularity, is herself and nothing more.

With The Babysitters Club though, it's exactly what you'd expect. About twenty minutes in this movie, I took out a voice recorder (compliments to the Motorola Droid) and recorded my audio saying what I believed will happen event to event. I was right. Pretty much down to the sentence accurate with the movie. It's cliche beyond belief. Nothing unique, nothing is colored outside of the lines.

The plot is about Kristie, a thirteen year old tomboyish girl who is the founding member of "The Babysitters Club." It's a club where girls...babysit. The Babysitters Club consists of Her, Mary Anne Spier, Dawn Schafer, Claudia Kishi, Stacey McGill, Mallory Pike, and Jessica Ramsey. Some girls dont get more than ten lines in the film (Mallory and Jessica mainly). The girls open a day-care in Kristie's backyard where they handle dozens of kids and try to keep them in control. They face numerous problems like the kids being a hazard to the neighbor ladies garden, them attracting a group of girls who are out to destroy the club, and Kristie facing troubles when her biological father returns to her side making her keep the secret he's back from her friends and her mother, causing Kristie more stress that is showing on the club and her life all around.

The movie is cliche, beyond cliche, non-realistic. It's a movie where everything is resolved the easy way out. If my folks were divorced and my dad told me not to tell my mom he's back you damn well better not trust me. Then the mom doesn't seem mad or concerned when her child is acting as strangely as possible. If my mom saw me behaving like that, she'd lock me in her room and make me fess up. Realistic situations, handled unrealistically.

I also would like to say for a movie to be called The Babysitters Club. There's more day-care action then babysitting which is bizarre. It's a coming of age film that is clearly just riding off the book series' popularity by using the title and characters. There are no scenes of babysitting at all, just some day-care shots then the rest of the points are dedicated to Kristie's personal life and other issues involving the character's life.

So much could have been done with this. It could have been extended with some babysitting scenes gone wrong. Get more into the characters, from what I hear they were extremely built on character development. So one 94 minute movie based on various books doesnt cut it. Especially when the main point, is completely abandoned. Still a fair kids movie, but not much of a movie itself. The Babysitters Club will amuse kids from age eight to twelve, but most likely bore kids older. But if you understand the difficult times when adolescents are put under pressure, this will show it in a fair context.

Starring: Schuyler Fisk, Bre Blair, Rachael Leigh Cook, Larisa Oleynik, Stacy Linn Ramsower, and Zelda Harris. Directed by: Melanie Mayron.