This Southern-fried coming-of-age drama, based on a book by Sue Monk Kidd, is pretty much tailor-made for girls of any age, but especially those who liked Fried Green Tomatoes or perhaps Driving Miss Daisy. It’s postcard-pretty and, uncomfortable moments aside, goes down like honey.

Dakota Fanning, the busiest little actress in Hollywood, plays a young girl in the South in 1964 who flees with her housekeeper (Jennifer Hudson) from her abusive father (Paul Bettany) and finds refuge with a trio of black sisters who live in the town where her mother grew up.

The film’s uglier elements, like Bettany’s treatment of Fanning and Hudson’s being beaten by white men, will likely irk anyone expecting a violence-free experience. But such unpleasantness gives way soon enough to a soft piano score and beautifully photographed scenes of sun-dappled South Carolina (really North Carolina) that seem designed more or less to attract tourists.

Fanning is good here, but though she’s still leagues ahead of other actresses her age, it’s not her best work. Hudson is adequate in a role that doesn’t require much of her, as is Alicia Keyes as the most serious-minded of said sisters, and Bettany is in stale wife-beater mode. Sophie Okonedo, however, gives a sweet, sensitive performance as the childlike sister who is too easily pained by the state of the world.

But the film belongs to Queen Latifah, who plays the most level-minded sister. Though you know that no one could possibly be that saintly, she nearly proves you wrong, doling out sage advice and nuggets of wisdom and administering comfort in the kind of soothing voice that would make Heath Ledger’s Joker repent for his sins.

And it’s all directed by Gina Prince-Bythewood, who a number of years ago made the much better Love & Basketball. [DVD]

Adventure/Drama

Rated PG-13

DVD Release Date: 2/4/09

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