As little girls go, Monica (Genevieve Buechner) is not exactly Hollywood cute. Oh, she's adorable by nearly any measurement, but her gangly limbs and wary eyes would probably get her kicked off the set of the average Welch's Grape Juice commercial. What Monica is is a junior grown-up. When she is denied what she wants, she doesn't pout or throw some tantrum like a baby; instead, she invokes the kind of cunning that will serve her well someday in the gray corridors of the adult world. Sure, she's capable of childish acts of whimsy and sometimes oblivious to their possible consequences—as when she steals a pair of angel wings from her church. But when those wings go missing, she prowls the city for them with the ruthlessness of a pint-sized gumshoe, bending the rules as need be and largely heedless to anybody who happens to get in her way.
There are those who will celebrate Saint Monica for its unsensationalized portrayal of a poor Latin family, and that's all well and good, but for my money, the film is more universally valuable as an unsentimentalized look at childhood and its discontents. The film takes you as few others do into the strange, alternate universe that is childhood, a place where grown-ups are enormous, moody and unpredictable creatures; you can't climb out of your bedroom window without everybody making a fuss; and raising a couple of dimes for the bus can be as tricky a matter as many of us face in an entire workweek.
Saint Monica screens as part of the Newport Beach Film Festival at Edwards Island Cinemas, 999 Newport Center Dr., Newport Beach, (949) 253-2880. www.newportbeachfilmfest.com. April 5, 2 p.m. $8.
