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So I finally sat myself down and watched the Diary of a Wimpy Kid movie the other day.  I felt properly prepared to do so.  I had read the review by Claire E. Gross over at Horn Book.  I had read The Wimpy Kid Movie Diary.  I was pumped.  I was ready.  So my husband and I sat down with the original book in front of us and popped in the DVD.

No one had prepared us for the invisible friend.  But I get ahead of myself.

Yes, the movie of Diary of a Wimpy Kid is a strange little mixture.  On the one hand, there is much that is admirable about it.  They actually hired kids to play kids and not 25-year-olds.  They kept referring back to the book, in an almost fearful way.  You got the sense that they understood perfectly how holy a text this was and that the only way they were going to get kids on their side would be by going back to it over and over again.  And they did something that I rather hoped for.  When I originally heard that the film was going to be live action I prayed that it would skew closer to those bizarre films of the 1980s like Better Off Dead than current and contemporary children’s films (like, say, Cats & Dogs).  To my delight, I sort of got my wish.  Like weirdo 80s films there were some animated sequences worked in there.  There were also moments of pure ridiculousness, like the just-be-yourself informational video the kids are forced to watch that makes beautiful fun of 1980s tropes and fashions.

Unfortunately, that wonderful sequence led to one of the problems with the movie.  Hollywood just wasn’t prepared for Greg Heffley.  When Greg watches the ridiculous film he sees with a mild sneer that Rowley and Fregley have both been deeply touched.  This leads him to think to himself that he’s going to follow the film’s advice, which is an incredibly not-Greg thing to do.  The reason kids like the book is that Greg is unapologetic in his awfulness.  He’s often punished for it, but not always.  So that sequence where Greg lets Rowley take the hit for something he himself did is in the film.  And when his mother says he should “do the right thing” and he does . . . by not fessing up, that too is in the film.  But then the message is reversed entirely.  Greg confesses to the crime.  He continues to feel bad.  Hollywood cannot cope with a child that doesn’t have a sterling conscience hidden away somewhere.  In her review, Ms. Gross put it best when she said, “The screenwriters seem torn between making Greg more sympathetic, and making the world less cruel.”

But this is not a huge problem and one might still enjoy the movie in spite of this new version of Greg.  No, my problem with the film was the invisible friend.

I explain.

Though I have no proof of any of this, here is how I believe the production of Diary of a Wimpy Kid went down.  The film was finished to some extent and previewed to The Powers That Be.  TPTB took one look at it and said, “It’s great, but boy there just aren’t any girls in there right?”  Someone might have pointed out the presence of the mom and Patty, but for the most part that’s correct.  “Yeah.  So, here’s what I’m thinking.  Why don’t we just reshoot a whole bunch of these scenes and add in this new girl character.  We’ll make it that Chloe Moretz girl.  S