Gold Diggers: The Secret of Bear Mountain

Christina Ricci,Anna Chlumsky,Jewel Staite,Roger R. Cross

Moving from Los Angeles to a backwater town is always difficult, but especially for the one doing the moving. After her father's death, Beth Easton and her mother, Kate, move to the house left to the family by a deceased aunt. Kate meets up with several old friends, but Beth has none. Slowly, however, she makes some, despite the lack of a nearby mall or anything else to do. Soon she meets up with two boys fighting...except one isn't a boy. It's a girl. She, Jody, is shunned by her peers as a "bad kid". As the film progresses, we see her as the apparent victim of a bad relationship between her own widowed mother and Ray, a man who, like everybody else, grew up in the town. Somehow, Beth sees that Jody isn't all that bad; "she just needs a friend." Beth sticks by her, even when she is blamed for almost killing Beth. She has a dream about finding lost gold left in Bear Mountain by a legendary woman named Molly Morgan. Jody has a map, and a "condo" in the mountain near the entrance to a series of caves and tunnels leading to the supposed gold. On the first day of summer, she and Beth find the cave where the gold supposedly is hidden. The movie continues digging deeper into Jody's life through Beth's eyes. Although the legend of Bear Mountain is the prime motivator of several incidents, it's Jody's relationship to Ray, her mother, Beth, and the rest of the townspeople that provides the focus of the movie.—Joe Sewell