The Casagrandes Movie Parent Guide

It’s Ronnie Anne Casagrande’s (Izabella Alvarez) twelfth birthday, and she plans to spend her “Summer of 12” skateboarding with her best friend, Sid (Leah Mei Gold). Those plans are dashed when her mom (Sumalee Montano) surprises the family with a trip to Mexico. Once there, Ronnie Anne’s need for space from her over-planning mom leads her to accidentally unleash a young demigod named Punguari (Paulina Chávez), who’s also looking for independence and has a complicated relationship with her mother.

I have never seen The Casagrandes TV show, but I have seen a few episodes of the series it spun off from, The Loud House, which didn’t really help me because none of those characters are in this movie. Luckily, this is a stand-alone film, so it’s accessible to anyone, whether or not they are familiar with the TV series.

As a stand-alone production, I think there’s a lot to be commended in The Casagrandes Movie. The film is short and fast paced but manages to impart some great positive messages while earning a few laughs. The story centers on the tension between two tween girls who feel grown up and their mothers who still see them as little kids. The mothers aren’t demonized; in fact their perspectives are given almost equal weight to those of the girls, and both mothers and daughters come to appreciate each other’s points of view. The mothers learn to give their daughters more space as they get older and start to figure out who they are, while the daughters learn that they still need their mom’s guidance and aren’t quite grown-up yet.

The messages are solid, but the overall film feels somewhat juvenile. The narrative moves quickly with clumsy plot devices to drive it forward, and there’s a fair bit of potty humor. I’ll point out that these are issues that will primarily annoy adults: this show is made for kids and it works for them. There’s almost no negative content to speak of outside of some moments of cartoon peril, making this a great choice for most young audiences. And parents will appreciate the strong messages and representation, even if the story leaves something to be desired.