365 Days. 365 Films.

This is essentially a kids film about a girl, Sara (Matthews) who gets sent to a boarding school while her father goes to serve in WWI. After moving to her New York boarding school she makes a lot of friends, telling them stories of her life in India before the move. The strict headmistress disapproves of her storytelling and fantasies as she disrupts the peace of the school and the other girls by telling them that they are all little princesses. After Sara finds out that her father is presumed dead with all of his assets taken away from the family name by the British government, she is forced by the headmistress to work as a penniless slave.

It has an unnecessary amount of soppy moments and I do think that if it concentrated a little harder on the brief moments of comedy (of which there are a few) then this could have create a stronger depth of emotion to the film. Instead of being emotionally open and heart-wrenching it turns into a real whine fest. More comedy would have grounded the film, giving more reasoning and a stronger impact for the emotional scenes. Having said that director, Cuaron does a good job of coaxing the audience into some kind of emotional response, but it’s never going to be a children’s classic…

Although they are only children, some of the acting is questionable but each of them are suited to their parts and sometimes the editing is somewhat confused but passable in the grand scheme of things. Imagining myself eight years old again doesn’t seem to help. This would have probably been the kind of film I would have watched once and then never again as a young girl so I can’t see it being so successful as a family film either, but good for a first watch.