In 1972, an 11-year-old girl named Vada Sultenfuss is living with her single father, Harry, in Madison, Pennsylvania. They live in a home that is also a funeral parlor for the town.

Harry works as a makeup artist for dead bodies. As a result, Vada is constantly exposed to them, including her deceased grandma, who still sits in the living room.

In the neighborhood, there is also a boy Vada’s age named Thomas J. Sennett, whom Vada likes to spend time with. However, other kids don’t understand him due to him claiming that he is allergic to a lot of things. A few girls even make fun of him in front of Vada and taunt them as “boyfriend” and “girlfriend.”

At some point, Vada notices that she is starting puberty. But she thinks it’s cancer. She takes her bike to see the local doctor. But despite her stress, the doctor says that she’s just fine. She won’t believe him, though.

Sometime later, a woman named Shelly DeVoto comes to be interviewed as a new makeup artist in addition to Harry. She is also very kind to Vada, including allowing her and Thomas a tour of her camper.

Vada bikes to see her teacher from the previous school year, Mr. Bixler, and tells him that she completed the summer reading. Mr. Bixler adds that he is teaching creative writing this summer, which deeply interests Vada.

However, she doesn’t know how to pay for it. So, she secretly takes money from Shelly’s jar and sends it to Mr. Bixler.

She goes to the first class—only to discover that it’s really for adults. But Mr. Bixler welcomes her anyway and allows her to participate.

The class works on poetry. After everyone reads their poems, Vada reads hers. It’s about summer fun.

However, Mr. Bixler wants her to focus more on her soul. Vada is hesitant to do so, since she believes that she killed her mother, who died 2 days after Vada was born.

To her surprise, her dad falls in love with Shelley and starts dating her, which greatly stresses her out. She even has Thomas accompany her to hide and watch them play bingo at a public space.

When Independence Day comes, Shelly’s ex-husband, Danny, crashes the Sultenfuss’s party. Despite how that annoys Shelly, Vada hopes that they’ll get back together.

Later that summer, Harry, Shelly, and Vada go to a carnival. Vada wins a fish from a game—but when she sees her father propose to Shelly, she drops the fish’s bag and almost kills it. In addition, she gets aggressive on the bumper cars.

Because her dad’s relationship with Shelly is upsetting for her, Vada constantly runs away. She even tries to get Thomas to join her, even though he’s not allowed out unsupervised after dark.

When Vada gets her first period, she screams, worrying that she’s experiencing something very serious. But Shelly assures her that she is fine and that all females menstruate during their lives.

Yet when Thomas comes, Vada angrily tells him to leave. Regardless of that, though, she goes to a willow tree by a lake to meet him. They even wonder what it would be like to kiss each other. After a little practice, the two share their first kiss.

But Vada loses her mood ring. So, Thomas is willing to look for it. He runs into a beehive he’d knocked down recently—only for the bees to swarm at him. Unfortunately, he turns out to be severely allergic to them. And their attack ends up killing him.

This devastates poor Vada to the point where she doesn’t even want to leave her room. How will her summer continue without Thomas?

The concept of this movie was quite interesting. Instead of adults or teenagers being in love, the story focuses on 11-year-old children. And their romance was age appropriate.

Even though there is no sexual content in this movie, there is some profanity, in spite of its PG rating. I would recommend that viewers be at least 10 years old.

Anyway, I thought Vada and Thomas were a cute young couple. That being said, Vada was sometimes hard to like.

She could act difficult, irresponsible, or even disrespectful. Although it’s normal for kids to get upset when their widowed parents start dating again, and I can understand how stressful that was for Vada, her reaction went a little too far. I had trouble understanding how Vada would start disliking Shelly just for that.

I also found it bizarre that she’d have a crush on her teacher, Mr. Bixler. That’s kind of creepy. But it would have been fine for her to see him as another father figure, especially since her own dad didn’t always understand her. Yet she otherwise had a healthy relationship with him.

I also found it interesting that this movie was set almost 20 years prior to its release date. But it turns out that there are good reasons for it. A big one is to set the mood and tone of loss and growing up in a simpler time. That played a role in Vada’s relationship with Thomas.

The pacing was quick for the most part. Despite that, though, the second half seemed a little slower, thus less engaging. But that’s a minor flaw.

Overall, I enjoyed My Girl. It was a nice watch about childhood romance and dealing with loss and grief.

I give this film 4 out of 5 stars.