Because of Winn-Dixie

Most reviewers seem to agree that something was lost in the translation of Because of Winn-Dixie from the printed page to the screen. For example, Claudia Puig observes in USA Today: The book tells the story more movingly and effectively. And Kevin Crust comments in the Los Angeles Times: Sometimes a movie can be so faithful to the book it's based on as to squeeze the life out of it. Nevertheless, the film is likely to entertain the tween-age set, most critics suggest. As Jami Bernard observes in the New York Daily News, You can hardly go wrong with a motherless child and a winsome dog. Jan Stuart in Newsday calls it this winter's lovable-dog picture. In fact, quite a few critics express delight with it. Nancy Churnin in the Dallas Morning News begins her review by writing: Good news for fans of the book Because of Winn-Dixie. Director Wayne Wang and screenwriter Joan Singleton have crafted an utterly faithful film adaptation of Kate DiCamillo's affecting Newbery Honor story. Ty Burr in the Boston Globe also has much praise for the movie. In pace, sensibility, and big, beating heart, this is a child's first indie film, and it's the better for it, he writes. A few other critics positively blister the film, including Peter Howell in the Toronto Star, who describes it as torpid and vapid and the most meandering and manipulative pile of Southern-fried mush to come down the sluice in a long while. Liam Lacey, across town at the Globe & Mail, regards it as an unhomogenized combination of formulaic family entertainment and cornpone Southern fable. But in the South itself -- at the Atlanta Journal-Constitution, Eleanor Ringel Gillespie writes that the movie arrives like manna from heaven in the midst of the Hollywood desert otherwise known as January and February.

Good movie for family viewing.However, it is a slower paced film and doesn't hold every child's attention.Great for animal lovers.l