Judy Blume made her name in the 1970s writing young-adult books that dealt with hard topics — puberty, bullying, divorce. But she’s no cynic, and this, the first movie made from one of her popular novels shares her notion that most of us are doing our best.
“Tiger Eyes,” directed by Blume’s son Lawrence from a script they co-wrote, concerns Davey (Willa Holland of “Gossip Girl”), whose father was killed during a robbery at his small shop in Atlantic City. Her shattered mother (Amy Jo Johnson) drags Davey and her young brother to stay with Aunt Bitsy (Cynthia Stevenson) in Los Alamos, NM. There Davey meets a young Native American man called Wolf (Tatanka Means), and begins to move past her grief.
It is a blandly shot movie, with pretty actors brooding in front of pretty scenery. There is also one of those breathy folk-ish soundtracks to which indie filmmakers are inexplicably addicted.
The interest comes from the script, which allows many characters some unsolved prickliness. Stevenson is wonderful as Bitsy; as part of her job, she shows off A-bomb replicas, and her pained expression when Davey’s brother points out the Hiroshima death toll is like a cosmetics saleslady being told her skin cream causes acne.
Time has robbed Blume’s subjects of shock value, but her perceptiveness hasn’t dimmed. The movie’s sincerity carries it along, and makes this story endearing despite its filmmaking clichés.