BIG GIRLS DON’T CRY

This is a pleasant, sometimes amusing comedy about a girl caught among three families created by parental searches for greener pastures. Its best quality is its optimism: families can change, cooperate, and move toward reconciliation. The film also presents Christianity positively.

But the movie treats serious family disruption with caricature, sitcom formulas, and unrealistically tidy solutions. Its hopeful message is worthwhile, yet it does not offer the provocative insight these real problems deserve. The language is only mildly offensive, but the sexual immorality is implied and a brief fistfight appears.

You can enjoy its hopeful spirit, but the practical answer is to wait for home viewing, where your family can discuss its strengths and shortcomings together.

Twelve-year-old Laura Chartoff feels out of place among her siblings and step-siblings, except for Josh, who is building a cabin at a mountain resort. When Laura stows away in Josh’s truck, the family’s complicated relationships follow her into the mountains. Once everyone converges there, Laura disappears, forcing the family members to work together.

Three stars means a pleasant but limited comedy. The film is sometimes quite amusing, and its sentimental story remains optimistic about harmony and change within families.

Its weaknesses are clear. Caricature and sitcom formulas flatten the chaos of marital breakup, while the solutions arrive too neatly for problems that are genuinely painful and complicated. The result is likable enough, but it needed more skill and deeper insight.

The film highlights reconciliation and offers a positive portrait of Christianity. It believes families can move toward harmony and change, even after the damage caused by serial marriages and the search for greener pastures.

That hopeful conviction aligns with the biblical value of reconciliation. Still, the film’s treatment of family breakdown is softened by caricature and tidy solutions, making its optimism less persuasive than it might have been. The review also observes that these messages needed to be delivered with more skill to a culture in which families are an endangered species.

Scripture calls believers to pursue peace where possible: “If possible, so far as it depends on you, live peaceably with all” (Romans 12:18).

This comedy has a hopeful heart and a positive view of reconciliation, but its tidy solutions and sitcom formulas keep it from fully confronting family pain. Save it for home, where your family can weigh both its optimism and its shortcomings. WAIT FOR HOME. For more suitable choices, see.