GurlyIamBeach Instant Favorite.

Afouotos Although it has its amusing moments, in eneral the plot does not convince.

Roy Hart If you're interested in the topic at hand, you should just watch it and judge yourself because the reviews have gone very biased by people that didn't even watch it and just hate (or love) the creator. I liked it, it was well written, narrated, and directed and it was about a topic that interests me.

Billy Ollie Through painfully honest and emotional moments, the movie becomes irresistibly relatable

bababear We rented this for our granddaughters (first and fourth graders) and I hadn't planned to watch it. But after a couple of minutes I was hooked.This is a major surprise. I expected it to be sugar coated fluff. Instead, the fine screenplay by Marsha Norman gives an amazingly strong subtext to a story about American life in 1904.America is entering the "modern" age and inventions such as the telephone and automobile are starting to change the fabric of the country. Samantha is an orphan living with her grandmother in a small town on the Hudson River.Her uncle comes home with the young lady he'll eventually marry. She's a er of votes for women, a rather daring position at the time.The people next door hire on a family as servants, and the small children work all day and aren't sent to school. Samantha becomes friends with one and teaches her how to read.In the fall Samantha goes to New York City to stay for a while with her uncle and new aunt. Eventually her young eyes are opened to the harsh reality of factories that make children work in hazardous conditions for low wages.Not surprisingly, there's a happy ending. It snows on Christmas Day and the plot points are neatly ties up. But along the way there's an examination of class structure, women's rights, child labor laws and compulsory education for children, and the early roots of labor unions and feminism.Interestingly enough, the film I kept comparing this with was Martin Scorsese's THE AGE OF INNOCENCE. The two would make an interesting double feature.

TxMike Cute young actress AnnaSophia Robb is Samantha, smart, well-adjusted, even though bot her parents died and now she lives with her grandmother in a small town in New York state. Her grandmother is Mia Farrow as Grandmary Edwards.Times are hard in the early 1900s, and a new family arrives next door, a man and his 3 young daughters. But they aren't the homeowners, they are hired as servants. The mother had died recently, and now dad and the 3 daughters worked hard, morning to night, for their keep. They knew no other option. Without schooling none of them could read or write.One of the girls, cute Kelsey Lewis as Nellie O'Malley, was Samantha's age, and they became immediate best friends. Samantha managed to teach Nellie to read and write. They were having a grand time.But things changed when Samantha's uncle showed up with his fiancée, and when they were married they asked to have Samantha live with them in New York City. While there she learned Nellie's dad got sick and died so the three were sent to an orphanage.The whole movie has a real feel to it for the times, and it tells a very touching story of friendship.SPOILERS: The orphanage is also in NYC, and Samantha and her new family look the kids up. It turns out the orphanage is being run more like a prison and, when Samantha finds out Nellie will be sent off and her two sisters left at the orphanage, she devises a plan to break them out and hide them in her attic. They are eventually found out, but in the process the wicked director of the orphanage is found out and fired, and in the best possible of endings, Samantha's uncle and aunt decided to adopt all of them, an instant family of 6!

iCarlyFan2009 I got this movie on DVD last January 2004 & it is the most Wonderful movie for the whole family (even my mom like it).This movie is about a young girl name Samantha (AnnaSophia Robb) & she lives in NewYork 1904. Samantha help her friends to make a Christmas joy to everyone & try to love her grandmother name Grandmary (Mia Farrow) but first Samantha met a name name Nellie O'Malley (Kelsey Lewis) & help her to have a Christmas Wish that she want as well as helping herself too. This movie is the best film for the Holiday season & hope everyone like this movie too.I saw that they repeated on TV a few day before Christmas'2005 but it better that I watch it on DVD.I give this movie a 10/10 because it a great movie.If you like this movie, Than you will like "Felicity: An American Girl Adventure" & other American Girl movies.

jwhale9382 I was surprised when I heard this was being made into a movie. My sister read the American Girls books when she was a kid, and I never expected them to make a movie out of them. But all things considered, I thought the WB did a good job.First of all, Annasophia Robb is a cute little kid, and at twelve years old, she has the potential to be a talented actress. She did a great job in Charlie and the Chocolate Factory and looked as if she had fun while doing it. In the movie, Annasophia plays Samantha Parkington, a ten-year-old girl living in New York in 1904. The acts of the film are divided into the four seasons. In the spring, she makes friends with the servant girls living next door. In the summer, she meets her uncle's new wife. In the fall, she moves in with her aunt and uncle in the city, and then helps her three friends escape from an orphan home. In the winter, everyone lives happily ever after.The orphanage reminded me of a federal prison, and the warden, er, manager reminded me of Carol Burnett in Annie. I also liked the movie's message about helping the needy. That's what made it a family movie.So maybe it wasn't Emmy worthy, but if you have kids, or you just like cute movies, you'll like this movie.