Flipped (2010 film) (revisited)

Wendelin Van Draanen’s novel is not perfect, but between how joyous it is to read and its glorious efficiency of language rendering several complicated moral tales in a little over two-hundred pages, reading it is almost as easy as breathing. Rob Reiner’s adaptation faithfully but clumsily translates the story beats, and while the setting change to the 1950s does makes sense of one odd plot element, this is otherwise a dud. I can’t fault the actors; even the kids do fine jobs. “Flipped”’s many monologues read well on the page and die on the screen—a fitting metaphor, all told.

4