AboveDeepBuggy Some things I liked some I did not.

Peereddi I was totally surprised at how great this film.You could feel your paranoia rise as the film went on and as you gradually learned the details of the real situation.

Teddie Blake The movie turns out to be a little better than the average. Starting from a romantic formula often seen in the cinema, it ends in the most predictable (and somewhat bland) way.

Nicole I enjoyed watching this film and would recommend other to give it a try , (as I am) but this movie, although enjoyable to watch due to the better than average acting fails to add anything new to its storyline that is all too familiar to these types of movies.

PossibleOptimism Grace Stirs Up Success was a simple movie at it's heart, a cute story of a girl who discovers that her hobby can become a dream come true. For Grace, baking is second only to her family, and even with some relations living overseas and basically strangers, she can still find, and be, herself. I just wish they'd cut out all that giggling. It was sorta unrealistic and got on my nerves. And my sister's nerves; she had to go bake some cookies to feel better. From its cool pastels to warm smiles, this movie served up a delicious array of charming characters and a story with a surprising amount of heart. That just wouldn't have been there without Uncle Bernard. And a certain little je ne sais quoi...

heartprivacy From an adult's perspective, this movie is wholly forgettable. Half the movie takes place in Paris, yet we see hardly anything of Paris or Parisian life (probably because it was filmed in Budapest, a cost-saving measure). The plot is not particularly believable - a 10 year old girl wants to start a business with her friends, but then has to go to Paris to visit her aunt and uncle where she wins over an unhappy cousin and absurdly wins over a snooty potential client with the help of macarons and a stray dog. She deals with feeling distanced from her friends, then competes on Master Chef Junior and (spoiler you saw coming 10 miles away: she wins and uses the prize money to save her grandparents' failing bakery). Interesting partnership for a company that is dedicated to empowering girls, as Master Chef Junior has been plagued with accusations of sexism and in reality, every winner of the competition has been a boy. But that's another discussion.The most irritating aspect of the movie to me was the manufactured conflict between Grace and her best friends. It seems the writers didn't want to spend much time actually giving them a reason to be upset at each other, so they just randomly get offended by things and then have to make up. Lazy writing, but then, it's a movie for 8 year olds, so...There is a very obvious difference in acting experience between the young actresses: Olivia Rodrigo, the lead actress, is adorable but clearly inexperienced and smiles constantly, while Eloise Webb, playing her cousin Sylvie, is far more subtle and believable. The actresses playing her best friends were also clearly cast on looks rather than talent. The most enjoyable performance is Fabrice Michel as Grace's pastry chef uncle.From the perspective of the target audience, however, they are clearly doing something right because my two daughters want to watch this movie constantly and have probably seen it close to 50 times at this point. The soundtrack is cute and bouncy with a French flair, the content is completely inoffensive so it's appropriate for even the youngest children (although they may not be able to follow the plot), and the messages are positive (helping others, following your dreams, etc. etc.).So in summary, it's a movie made for children and it's perfectly fine for them. Adults will probably not want to watch past a single viewing.

Bryan Kluger Yet another 'American Girl' film has been released under the name 'Grace Stirs Up Success'. If you're unfamiliar with the 'American Girl' franchise, you can read my previous hardcore action review of 'Saige Paints the Sky'. 'American Girl' is basically a line of actual play dolls for girls ages 4-12. None of the films in this series have anything to do with a doll, but rather try and tell these young girls what life is really like on the outside once out of a federal prison, which brings us to 'Grace Stirs Up Success'.Grace is a young girl who loves to bake cupcakes and french macaroons. When not laughing at literally everything on the planet, she works in her grandparents old bakery, which is failing as a business. Grace wants a bicycle for the summer, but her mom (Virginia Madsen, the only recognizable name) tells her she has to earn the money herself. Well, this makes Grace furious and begins to poison all of the customers at her grandparents bake shop, killing every single innocent person. Grace then flees to Paris to hide out with her aunt and uncle, only to have the three of them go on a killing spree with machetes with people who own bikes or gives them the stink eye. Think 'Pee-Wee's Big Adventure' meets 'Ichi the Killer'.After a bloody shoot out, which leaves Grace with only one limb left, she is extradited back to the US, given robot limbs, and sent to prison, where she is rehabbed and forced to cook cupcakes again for orphaned children. The blood and guts are unrelenting here and makes every Quentin Tarantino movie look rated 'G'. And be sure to stay until after the credits roll, because once Grace realizes the true value of taking a human life, Samuel L. Jackson shows up and asks her to join some sort of team. I really do wish the above story plot actually happened in 'Grace Stirs up Success', but unfortunately it doesn't.Instead, we are forced to watch a young girl and her annoying friends literally laugh and scream at everything they hear and say with fake smiles on their faces. It's true, Grace likes to bake and does go to Paris, France, where she learns a little bit more about French pastries, however the film never becomes realistic. Instead, it's a fairy tale type of situation, where nothing bad ever happens, and these young girls who are watching these movies would believe that everything will come true and be as easy as following a recipe in real life.Even when friends and family get mad, or when a business is failing due to a financial situation, all you have to do is put on a smile, spread red frosting on a cupcake while listening to the worst song ever created on your iPod, and everything will live happily forever after. That's no joke here with this movie. Oh yeah, I forgot to mention that 20 minutes of this movie is devoted to a reality show segment, where young kids compete to be a master chef. It's filmed like a reality show, complete with music and title cards. I might have blacked out a few times during the film, due to the incessant and annoying laughing and screams from the actors in the film. I don't know if it was a seizure or me punching myself to stop the agonizing horror on screen, but I did finally make it through the entire movie, only to find out that Samuel L. Jackson does NOT show up. I cried. Then I punched myself again for crying, which made me cry again. It was a vicious cycle.The acting here isn't even acting. It's more like screaming and smiling as hard as you can while trying to recite a line of dialogue. I've seen documentaries about giraffes where the dialogue between the animals are better. Poor Virginia Madsen. You were nominated for an Oscar, and this is what you're doing now. I hope the favor you owed is finished, so I can look forward to seeing you in a remake of 'Candyman'.

richard-1787 The first - and, so far, only other - review of this movie sounds as if it were written the the pr guy in charge of promoting this movie. Take it for what it's worth.I'm not going to try to guess how this movie will go over with its intended audience, young American girls who buy AG dolls. My reason for watching it was to see how it depicts Paris and French culture, and that's what I'll restrict my comments to here.Unlike *Passport to Paris*, for example, the awful Olson twins movie aimed for largely the same audience, this movie doesn't really do much with Paris or the Parisians. There is a quick - very quick - bicycle tour of the famous Parisian monuments 25 minutes into the picture. Other than that, most of what we see of the city is the inside of Grace's aunt's VERY luxurious apartment in Paris and her French husband's HUGE pastry shop on the rue de la Paix, one of the most expensive shopping districts in the French capital. This is the world of those who have money, lots of money.We don't see much of Parisians, so we don't deal with the stereotypes on which some American comedies set in Paris play. Grace's French half-cousin isn't "snooty," despite what the pr person wrote in the previous review. She's just unpleasant to Grace, until Grace wins her over.What I found more interesting is that, despite Grace's repeatedly proclaimed love of bakery and her desire to shine in her uncle's pastry shop, she makes NO effort to learn about French pastry while she's in Paris. This is shown in two ways.First: When Grace tries to interest the owner of a luxury hotel, the Palace de Paris, in her uncle's pastry, she presents him with macarons. As you may know, these have been chic here in the States for the last several years. There's nothing to macarons, however, and in France they are mostly for children, because of the bright colors and jam fillings. They aren't desserts, they're just a quick snack, like cookies. Nonetheless, when the hotel owner finally breaks down and agrees to hire Grace's uncle, it is his macarons that impress the (adult) patrons at the hotel's July 14th garden party.Second: when Grace returns to the U.S. and decides to save her French grandparents' French bakery, located somewhere in New England, she transforms it into a shop that specializes in cupcakes - not something you find in the average French bakery - and macarons. In other words, she turns a representative of French cuisine into a store that caters to American children's desires for sweets. She saves the French pastry shop by turning it into an American sweets shop.And when she competes in the junior pastry chef contest back in the States, her first idea is to make a pineapple upside-down cake, which she had learned how to make before she left for Paris.When she can't make that, she ends up winning with a tower of macarons, again something for children - though I suspect children might be put off by the lavender color.This movie teaches the sort of moral lessons modern children's movies are expected to teach, and that's fine. The trip to Paris is a waste, though, because Grace learns nothing there that she could not have learned here at home.From this adult's perspective, the movie, at 107 minutes, is also way too long.