Alice Upside Down

Alice Upside Down (Anchor Bay) — If you and your family are tired of the perfectly cute and perfectly polished teens in today’s movies and TV shows, you will like Alice. Played by Alyson Stoner (she was the tomboy Sarah in Cheaper by the Dozen), the girl’s a bit of a slob who is forever tripping and spilling things. She has an excuse: her mother died was she was young all she has for role models are her culinary-challenged father (Luke Perry, who’s not so bad, you know) and her too-cool-for-school brother Lester (Lucas Grabeel from High School Musical, who is way better here). Alice is trying to fit in at a new school, deal with a tough teacher and some new “friends”. There’s a sense of realness to Alice and her problems that you don’t normally get out of a mainstream US movie release. I thought the pining over of the dead mother, gone six years, were a bit much. I think a family would have moved on a little more than these guys have. And the school play? Woulda cost about a million to put that production up. But the overbearing but loving Aunt Sally, the passion behind Lester’s band the Naked Nomads (they play shirtless) and true ethnic diversity of the cast make for a film that seems real and more importantly deals with real emotions.