While uneven in places, The Great Gilly Hopkins works because it boasts an actress tough enough for the title role.
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RogerEbert.comGlenn Kenny
RogerEbert.comGlenn Kenny
A spectacularly foursquare “family is what you make it” redemption story. The kind of thing that film critics like to dismiss as “looking like a made-for-TV movie,” as if that comparison/analogy even holds as a dismissal anymore.
The title character is a child, but two adult actors, Kathy Bates and Glenn Close, really give The Great Gilly Hopkins its considerable heart. This movie, though uneven, is affecting because of these two reliable stars.
The Great Gilly Hopkins has its enjoyable moments — Bates' entertaining, scenery-chewing turn providing many of them — and its themes are refreshingly complex for a film targeted to kids.
The whole movie falls between stylization, which it mostly lacks, and realism, which it can’t quite claim with its non-teenage teenager spouting non-swearing swears.