A pretty and sincere 14-year-old (Evan Rachel Wood) maintains a business as her neighborhood’s “secret keeper”: little kids line up in front of her homemade hut and pay her 50 cents to hide household objects they’ve broken and to give them advice on their obsessions and problems (one is posing as her older sister to romance a boy on the Internet). Predictably, the various deceptions—including a giant one of her own, that she’s adopted—start to unravel. Director Blair Treu avoids unnecessary exposition, capturing the essential drama in each scene, and uses movement and music to link characters and locales, which helps make his emotional manipulation effective. But as the multiple dilemmas are all conveniently resolved, this reveals itself as a tearjerker-cum-sitcom with a predictable moral lesson: “You can’t keep secrets about yourself and lead a true life.” 93 min.
