God knows, good family entertainment is hard to come by. In my considered opinion, My Girl is an outstanding exception from this rule. I have not read the book the film is based on. I would not be surprised, if it turned out to be much more superior to the film version; I, for one, find it unfortunately too often a case. However, judged on its own merits, the movie scores as high a rating as 8 in my book--in terms of achieving its purpose: pleasing the whole spectrum of possible viewers. The story-line is nicely balanced, with just the right mixture of the human situation drama, realism, insight into child psychology and optimism. One might argue that in the film finale Veda is shown as having too quickly recovered from her supposedly terrible and tragic loss, but children are indeed this way, and the depth of her earlier suffering is sure evidence that this chapter of her life will be forever locked into her conscience. It is exactly the balance I want my daughter exposed to. The dialog is fine: mature enough to show Veda's precociousness without overdoing it and to give the parents some intellectual pleasure and simple enough, on the other hand, for children to follow without losing themselves in its complexities. I regard myself as a poor judge of acting, but having said that, I find the acting in My Girl totally satisfying. If I may venture a guess, I'd say that, e.g., Jack Nickelson at his best would be to a large extent lost on the younger audience and would not be missed by adults who expected just to have great time with their kids together. That my wife and I have had.
