Okay, all 4 younger actresses are quite engaging, likable and amazingly unaffected---they can even almost sell me on the "Stand by Me" plot rip off (or what passes for a plot). I don't mind sweet, small town retro (that never really existed) and I am a feminist, so girl power is fine by me.
BUT...it still doesn't cut it. For starters, all the homes exteriors are unquestionably mid-80's/90's style homes. EVERY house should have been a split level or a ranch (I grew up in exactly that type of sub division). While the interiors are overall more accurate,. houses that small wouldn't possibly have such large interior rooms. Teeny's room has painted art deco furniture---fashionable in 1995, NOT 1970 (and Teeny appears to be the wealthiest of the group). Really, couldn't they have borrowed "The Wonder Years" set? The other thing is the truly, utterly horrible acting from the adults. Rita Wilson portrays Chrissy as fully mentally unbalanced. Keeps her home exactly the way her mother had it decorated??? Races around like a shrill harpy??? I kept waiting for someone in a white coat with a net to come and take her away. Yes, she could be nerdy and traditional--that doesn't equal totally crazy.
Since they're also all 37 now, it doesn't hold water on that level (they all still act twelve, with apologies to 12 year old). Unless she had serious fertility problems, Chrissy would have wanted to get pregnant the second she got married. Athletic, cute Christina Ricci turns into fat, ugly Rosie O'Donnnel??? And Melanie Griffith (more like 18 in 1970) is already far too old, and simply horrible.
In all, if nothing else is on, watch it. But it isn't even fun in a campy way.
BUT...it still doesn't cut it. For starters, all the homes exteriors are unquestionably mid-80's/90's style homes. EVERY house should have been a split level or a ranch (I grew up in exactly that type of sub division). While the interiors are overall more accurate,. houses that small wouldn't possibly have such large interior rooms. Teeny's room has painted art deco furniture---fashionable in 1995, NOT 1970 (and Teeny appears to be the wealthiest of the group). Really, couldn't they have borrowed "The Wonder Years" set? The other thing is the truly, utterly horrible acting from the adults. Rita Wilson portrays Chrissy as fully mentally unbalanced. Keeps her home exactly the way her mother had it decorated??? Races around like a shrill harpy??? I kept waiting for someone in a white coat with a net to come and take her away. Yes, she could be nerdy and traditional--that doesn't equal totally crazy.
Since they're also all 37 now, it doesn't hold water on that level (they all still act twelve, with apologies to 12 year old). Unless she had serious fertility problems, Chrissy would have wanted to get pregnant the second she got married. Athletic, cute Christina Ricci turns into fat, ugly Rosie O'Donnnel??? And Melanie Griffith (more like 18 in 1970) is already far too old, and simply horrible.
In all, if nothing else is on, watch it. But it isn't even fun in a campy way.