Four of America's then-best teenage actresses play lifelong friends in this feminist variant of Stand By Me. Set in 1970, it's the story of their 13th summer, which involves them holding seances in graveyards and believing they have raised a troubled spirit from the dead, in trying to solve the mysterious death of a 12-year-old boy and his mother 25 years before. Although it tells a few simple truths, the film has nothing of great perception to impart: the girls feud with boys, have problems with parents and hold wide-eyed discussions on sex and maturity. Gaby Hoffmann gives the most sensitive performance, which isn't to say that Christina Ricci, Thora Birch and Ashleigh Aston Moore aren't also good. Melanie Griffith, Rita Wilson, Demi Moore and Rosie O'Donnell rather less convincingly bookend the tale as their adult versions. It's a slightly more hard-edged version of the sentimental sort of small-town story that Hollywood was making long before this film is set.

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