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When Jodie Foster admirers discuss her career, this one always gets left out. It's a simple, sentimental story of an ill young girl and the effects her strength and will has on the people around her. Richard Harris is a bit heavy as her father (and I could have done without his non-singing over the credits: "Deeeeeer-draaaaaaah"), but Foster makes the most of her scenes, particularly with William Windom as a doctor surprised by her maturity and Brad Savage as a local boy who's curious about sex (they hold hands and lie together on the beach in a stunningly delicate moment). Based on the flop Broadway play "The Isle Of Children", which starred a post-"Miracle Worker" Patty Duke, the film gets a little hectic in its final stages as the filmmakers try to wrap up the story with a birthday party sequence I didn't much care for. Still worth-seeing for Foster, luminous at eleven years and holding this picture together. **1/2 from ****
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