Nancy Drew and the Hidden Staircase (PG)
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This is based on a book I haven't read. It got a limited theatrical release before being released to video. It bombed financially, but did okay critically. I liked it well enough, and I think it's a bit of a shame it didn't become a franchise. I feel like the mysteries played a bit less of a part in the overall plot than I would have liked, but I still think "mystery films" is the best category for my review. It's also a bit strange to me that the title character doesn't start out as a sleuth at all.

Nancy Drew (Sophia Lillis) is a teenage girl whose mother died some time ago, after which she and her father Carson (Sam Trammell) moved from Chicago to the small town of River Heights. Nancy wasn't happy about moving away from her friends and her city life to a town she finds boring. But at least she's made a couple new friends, George and Bess. And her aunt, Hannah (Andrea Anders), lives in town, and is friendly with Nancy. (Carson and Nancy might actually live with her, I wasn't clear about that.) After Bess is cyber-bullied, Nancy figures out that it was done by a guy named Derek, and comes up with a prank to get back at him. Derek's father is a rich and influential person in River Heights, and wants Nancy punished. The town's sheriff assigns her community service, during which she is supervised by Deputy Patrick, who will later help her in a few ways.

She then meets an eccentric old woman named Flora (Linda Lavin), who believes her house is haunted. Nancy decides to help figure out what's going on. She's joined by Flora's niece, Helen, who is Derek's girlfriend, and acts mean toward Nancy and her friends. But they set aside their feud to help Flora, spending a night at her house. Things get pretty spooky, but the next day, Nancy finds some footprints, which she tracks to a bookcase that opens onto a hidden room. She gets some help from George and Bess with her subsequent investigation. Meanwhile, her father has gone away on a business trip, and has failed to check in with Nancy, which worries her. So she begins investigating his disappearance, and finds that he's been kidnapped.

I won't spoil any more details of the two mysteries, which end up intertwining, but I will say that Helen eventually becomes friends with Nancy, George, and Bess. I thought the story was... I don't exactly want to say too simplistic, but it also wasn't too complex. The movie definitely seems aimed at a younger demographic, but it's good enough to be enjoyed by people of any age. And I mostly liked Nancy as a character. It would have been interesting to see her in future movies, becoming more of an intentional detective than she was here, where sleuthing was basically just a way to overcome her boredom.