CHARLOTTE’S WEB

Yes — gather everyone, from toddlers to grandparents, and go. This adaptation of E.B. White's beloved novel is paced lyrically rather than frenetically, which means it trusts children enough to let a story breathe. It extols and lives out real virtues: love, friendship, humility, thanksgiving, and laying down your life for a friend.

It also happens to be gorgeous — elegant camerawork, natural-feeling animal performances, and a small-town world so lovely you'll forget it was filmed far from home. There is real jeopardy in this story, but nothing that should trouble even sensitive young viewers; the action and slapstick violence are very mild.

This is a rare film with no real cost to weigh. Take the children. Take the grandchildren. Invite the neighbors.

Fern, a farm girl in the small village of Somerset, rescues a runt piglet her father was going to put down. She names him Wilbur and loves him — until he grows too big for the house and must move across the lane to her uncle's barn. There, lonely for Fern, Wilbur befriends a spider named Charlotte. When the other animals let slip why he's really being fattened up, Charlotte makes him a promise: she will find a way to save his life.

Four stars, and the film earns every one. The animals speak so naturally that even fans of Babe will fall for these new barnyard characters. The camerawork and set design are elegant and radiant, making small-town rural life — filmed, surprisingly, in Australia — look as beautiful as it's ever looked on screen. The casting is impeccable, and the pacing is unusually patient for a children's film, giving young viewers room to reflect rather than rushing them from gag to gag. It's a brilliantly plotted story that never loses its jeopardy, yet never feels frantic either. Few films for children are staged and photographed this carefully.

This film sees the world the way Scripture does. It carries an extremely moral worldview, with a positive reference to God's grace and repeated hints — through its many small miracles — of intelligent design behind ordinary life. Its heroes practice biblical virtues without preaching them: love, friendship, humility, thanksgiving, and above all Charlotte's willingness to spend herself for a friend's life. Small-town, rural American life is portrayed with real warmth and respect.

There are only the faintest shadows to note. A few very minor animal-rights inferences surface around the story's Christmas-dinner backdrop, though the film doesn't dwell there or press an agenda. This is a story that finds the miraculous hiding inside an ordinary barnyard — which is really just another way of saying it sees creation the way its Maker does.

At its heart, Charlotte's Web is about a friend who lays down her life to save another. Scripture names that love directly: "Greater love has no one than this, that someone lay down his life for his friends" (John 15:13).

Charlotte's Web is the rare film with no fine print attached to the recommendation — beautiful, gentle, and true, a story that trusts children to feel real loss and real joy in the same afternoon. Worth the trip. Gather the family, invite the neighbors, and let this one become a tradition.