Angel in Training

This is a cute family movie. An angel sees a 13-year-old girl having a tough time with her life. She gets sent to earth to help this just-reaching-puberty girl learn to appreciate her life, and her changing body (with her mother having died years before). The angel becomes a good friend, and tells her supportive things. This part of the movie is powerfully good.

Her friends at school are becoming boy-crazy, while she remains somewhat of a tom-boy, with a good friend who happens to be a boy. Things come to a head when she is invited to a birthday party (but only if she comes with a boy, yuck). This film portrays (quite well) the mixed bag of feelings a girl can go through.

Her father is a cartoonist, and sort-of falls for an extremely self-centered woman, who promises him to get his comic strip syndicated nationally. The parts with the girlfriend are almost cartoon-ish with some slap-stick humor (better for the kids to enjoy).

I have watched this several times over a few years. It holds up well. All-in-all, a pretty good hour-and-a-half.