The appeal of “Aquamarine” is identical to the appeal of “The Sisterhood of Traveling Pants”: smart, confident girls who are a little out of the mainstream and don’t care.
Set at a beach resort, “Aquamarine” could be “Sisterhood of the Traveling Fins,” with three characters who are about to be separated (one is moving to Australia) but who pack their last days together with adventures.
The adventures begin when Claire (Emma Roberts, niece of Julia) and Hailey (Joanna “Jojo” Levesque) find a mermaid (Sara Paxton) in the pool. Which means they have to deal with the mermaid, the moving-away thing and a cute lifeguard named Ray, who is blond and apparently the winner of a “lowest possible waistline on a swimsuit” contest.
There’s nothing original about “Aquamarine,” which owes a fish-out-of-water debt to “Splash” (intriguingly, it’s just the first of this year’s two mermovies – “The Lady in the Water” is on the way).
But there’s a sense that the script understands how tween girls think and what interests them (or maybe it’s just what we hope interests tween girls): romance, not sex. Their innocent crush on Ray, for instance, is adorable, as are their not-quite-successful attempts to pick up dating techniques from the sages at Seventeen and CosmoGirl.
The likable Roberts and Levesque, meanwhile, are a team around whom more movies could be built. Levesque has a practical intelligence, and Roberts does lots of things well. She already has great timing and, as she demonstrates in perhaps two too many crying scenes, an ability to underplay big emotional moments.
Roberts appears destined for big things. When she gets them, she will have no reason to look back and be embarrassed by this step along the way.
** 1/2 | “Aquamarine”
PG for some language|1 hour, 47 minutes|COMING-OF-AGE STORY|Directed by Elizabeth Allen; starring Emma Roberts, Joanna “Jojo” Levesque, Sara Paxton|Opens today at area theaters.
