Kit Kittredge: An American Girl

Set in Cincinnati during the Great Depression, Kit Kittredge: An American Girl follows a ten-year-old girl who dreams of becoming a newspaper reporter. When her father loses his business and leaves home to look for work, Kit and her mother take in boarders to hold on to their house. The paying guests bring stories and change into the household, and when a lockbox holding the family's money is stolen, a young drifter named Will, whom Kit has befriended, becomes the chief suspect. Convinced of his innocence, Kit sets out to find the real culprit, a search that lands her and her friends in trouble.

The film is directed by Patricia Rozema, whose earlier work includes When Night Is Falling and Mansfield Park; it is the third of the five features listed for her, arriving between Mansfield Park and Into the Forest. Ann Peacock wrote the screenplay, and the cast is led by Abigail Breslin as Kit, with Chris O'Donnell and Julia Ormond as her parents, Stanley Tucci as a boarder, Max Thieriot as Will and Joan Cusack as Miss Bond, among 22 credited performers.

Released in July 2008, the film had a budget of about 10 million dollars and took roughly 18 million dollars worldwide, a modest return. On IMDb it holds 6.5 out of 10 from around 6,600 votes, and on TMDB the same 6.5 from roughly 145 votes, while a critics' rating of 6.8 from 106 reviews suggests reviewers responded a little more warmly than general audiences.