Aside from some moments of stilted dialogue and underwhelming performances, the Camilla Dickinson film is the first Madeleine L'Engle film to actually stay true to her unorthodox spirituality.

As far as adaptations go, “Camilla Dickinson” is a shadow of “Camilla” the novel, though it gives Camilla a more active role in her development than the book does. It holds its own and delivers its own message: in a culture where women are viewed as homemakers or trophy wives, girls can be who they want to be, can form their own opinions, can stand up to their mothers and fathers, and can learn to forgive. Camilla is representative of the cliché misunderstood teen who just wants to escape a bad situation and is accused of associating with bad influences, when the bad influences are actually her parents. Yet she can still overcome her mother’s co-dependency and her father’s stone-walling when she allows herself to trust people she barely knows and gets to see another way to live.

Adapting an early novel by beloved young-adult author Madeleine L'Engle, Cornelia Duryée Moore's Camilla Dickinson struggles with an emotional obviousness that can make it feel like a film by an earnest adolescent girl instead of about one. Theatrical potential is slim despite some familiar faces in the cast and L'Engle's name on the script.