There's a return to the old values of the Disney studio here with the story of a 14-year-old girl who, tough as any boy, runs away from Depression-gripped Chicago to join her father, who has gone to Washington. She is befriended by a half-breed dog she calls Wolf and by a young drifter (John Cusack) for whom she feels the first stirrings of love. There's only one way to play Natty successfully, by going in there and giving it all you've got. Young Meredith Salenger does just that: she's never been as effective since. Director Jeremy Kagan conjures up an unfailing, exciting sense of period in creating the best family film the Disney people had turned out in more than a decade.

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