Bridge to Terabithia plays like an adaptation of a young adult novel and, indeed, it is. But what probably worked well for a YA novel doesn’t always translate to the silver screen. When things didn’t come together fully, I eventually just assumed it was because the film was attempting to stay faithful to the book’s structure. That makes for great fan material, but not for great filmmaking.

What Terabithia probably does have over its source is the ability to let us literally share in the visualization of the imaginations of its middle school aged protagonists. Scorned by school bullies and at edge with their families, Jesse (Josh Hutchinson) and Leslie (AnnaSophia Robb) create a backyard imaginary world that helps heal current wounds, as well as unforeseen wounds yet to come. It’s a sweet, uplifting story that I imagine most kids would thoroughly enjoy.

But it probably worked better as a book. The classic middle school problems of bullies, bratty sisters, social embarrassment, pretty teachers, romantic tensions – then tagged with attempts at providing a practical solutions – all feels a bit worn. This type of material might be new to the kids watching, but certainly not to the genre. The compressed format of a 95 minute film also makes it difficult to present each of these issues in anything but a fleeting light.

Other problems don’t get solved at all. The film’s most interesting tension – a mildly troubled relationship between Jesse and his father (Robert Patrick) – appears to be nearly forgotten by the story’s end. And the significance of Jesse’s crush on his music teacher (Zooey Deschanel) is only made apparent as an afterthought. Since when to teachers go on “field trips” with individual students of the opposite sex anyways?

One of the few conflicts in the film that actually gets a proper resolution is the strained relationship between Jesse and his too cute little sister (Bailee Madison). But doubling as a resolution to Jesse’s inner turmoil, it’s so good it very nearly makes up for the rest of them combined.