Stargirl moves from required reading to required viewing with the Disney+ adaptation of Jerry Spinelli’s novel.

The town of Mica, Arizona, a town unnoticed by the world, is the backdrop for the story of Stargirl Caraway and Leo Borlock. Told over half a year, the film adaptation new to Disney+ from Julia Hart, Kristin Hahn, and Jordan Horowitz takes a 20-year old story and modernizes only the essentials to bring the timeless story from the page to the screen.

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Nothing had changed. Everything had changed. These six words from Jerry Spinelli’s novel echo the rampant change that comes with the arrival of something unfamiliar yet entirely unassertive. Stargirl was not someone to engage with, but someone to react against. “If we happened to somehow distinguish ourselves, we quickly snapped back into place, like rubber bands.” In a town quick to turn its eyes on anything different, Stargirl (Grace VanderWaal) in her thrift store, lavish outfits, with her pet rat Cinnamon, her ukulele thrown over her shoulder, invited discourse. She was a star and unafraid of the spotlight that came with it.

A literal spotlight follows her around as she performs on the football field gaining the approval and attention of every person in the school — popular, unpopular, teachers, parents. Leo Borlock (Graham Verchere) is most affected by her arrival. His curiosity quickly turns to infatuation and then to love. A sentiment that is reciprocated. But just as quickly as Stargirl’s presence swirls up the town with her presence, that energy cannot be sustained by one person. Normalcy returns, however, the spark that Stargirl left, leaves a little mark on everyone there.

Rounded out with stellar performances by Karan Brar, Darby Stanchfield, and Giancarlo Esposito as Archie, the film attempts to encapsulate the experiences that Spinelli so delicately laced together 20 years ago. And it succeeds, by deviating where necessary and picking up threads where necessary to keep the spirit of the original work alive.

Watch: Stargirl adaptation from Disney+ drops first trailer

‘Stargirl’ review

In 2000, seven years before John Green’s Looking for Alaska and a decade before The Fault in Our Stars, readers had a decade worth of Jerry Spinelli novels to choose from. By the time Stargirl hit the shelves, books such as Maniac McGee (my personal favorite), Crash, and Wringer all held places on required reading lists. I remember reading Crash in grade school and taking off to read the rest of Spinelli’s catalogue — an early sign of a pattern that would repeat with several authors, directors, actors in later years.

This was around the time Love, Stargirl was about to be released. There is perhaps no cover of a book that reminds me more of grade school than the iconic image of a star hanging over a stick figure girl. Now, having not read Stargirl in many, many years, I was curious if the book held up. Luckily, it took less time to reread Stargirl than it did to watch the film adaptation.

The movie felt as if it took the novel held it upside down, shook out all the best bits, then mixed them up with a few new details including the classic Disney move to kill off a parent. The Mud Frogs went from a throw away passage about dry ponds to a mascot for the school to rally behind. Porcupine ties went from a quirky accessory inherited from an uncle to a piece that takes center stage over a decade of birthdays and celebrations. And the fast forward button was pressed on the relationship between Stargirl and Leo, pinning the audience more directly with Leo, affording a better view of how Stargirl’s story swirled around him and the school.

Still, there are some things that the novel does better than the movie. This, of course, is the benefit of being told that the winds of change are coming rather than taking them in on the screen. In fact, it was hard to keep track of what the students were taking offense to about halfway through the movie, even with subtitles telling me that they were whispering about her decision to walk off the field with an injured player of the opposing team.

The best passage from the novel that did not translate well-enough surrounds Stargirl’s sudden change into being Susan. A name given to her at birth, perfectly normal in every single way. When the film focuses on Susan, VanderWaal is barely recognizable as she proceeds to the state debate championship. The subtleties of what she hopes will happen as a result of her performance — a return to glory as she wins the state title and returns to the school. She wants to feel that surge of popularity as much as the next person, but she is lost in isolation that comes with everyone turning against her warranted or not. She brought glory back to the school, but it was an individual glory that she brought back not a win for the masses.

But one that did translate better — is the final dance scene. In that moment, the collective experience of being with Stargirl one last time comes to ahead. It strips away the flashiness of the book, one that comes with a sidecar filled with flowers that both announces the arrival and departure of our title character. Her final gift was to push Leo into the spotlight, to offer an apology, and to make everyone relish the spirit she inspired in them in the first place. It was a reminder that they are not bound by winning only, but by sharing in joy no matter where it comes from.

Stargirl was a collective experience, one that, for everyone who knew her, added to a tiny piece of a puzzle. When they return to tell stories years later, the puzzle pieces don’t quite fit together as well as they should. They’ve been crushed, or gotten wet, warped over time. But they still create a semblance of a story, binding everyone who entered her orbit for that brief moment in time. The novel jumps to the perspective of Leo 15 years removed from high school and the film takes a similar approach. It gives readers a look into Stargirl’s private life, only discovered after she departs.

Her secret to winning over the masses, to making everyone feel particularly special — paying attention to the details that others would gloss over in place of the sensational. It is a fine line between being in everyone’s business and being a considerate person. When someone starts to take notice of the details of another’s life, it is easy to turn on them for having an ulterior motive. What could Stargirl gain knowing when Leo’s birthday is? What is in it for her for kneeling beside an injured player and making sure he is ok? And what happens when she misinterprets a situation?

We find out in the film when a bicycle brings turmoil to a family, and there are several other instances of her actions being misconstrued in the novel. But what remains a constant is that everything that she does, even though she is dressed in glitter and covered in flowers, is a small act of kindness.

These “fillers” so called for the fact that her collection of moments, pieces of information to highlight, are meant to simply take up space and fill out a person’s story. There are no fillers to be found in the Stargirl film. Instead, I felt that every scene, performance, fourth-wall breaking glance from Stargirl came at exactly the right moment. They elevated the story instead of detracting. Spinelli’s book does the same thing. There is no “filler” passages, which is why it is so easy to run through the pages.

“People who never even saw you before are smiling at you and slapping you on the back and pumping your hand, and suddenly it seems like the whole world is calling your name, and you’re feeling so good you pretty much just float home from school.” This passage is the start of everyone feeling the euphoria around winning a football game. In the shot of everyone flooding the field, Leo, a member of the 16-person marching band, makes pointed contact with the star quarterback. Everyone is connected in that moment. Seen. And all because a girl took to the field a few weeks before and sang a song about being true to your school. It wasn’t a battle cry, but for a town that never heard one before, they took it for being a guiding light.

The music is a particular high point of the adaptation with Grace VanderWaal taking centerstage as the (forgive me) star. If she wins you over during the movie, which she very well will, stay through the credits and listen to her original song, “Today and Tomorrow” that culminates in her and Verchere sitting against the sunset of the desert. An extraordinary wonder in a place where nothing ever happens.

Stargirl is available to stream on Disney+ now.