Surprisingly very deep for a Nickelodeon film...
I was 9 years old when this came out, and even then, I knew there was something very different about this film. It had a very rare message for a kid's film: "The truth hurts, but it needs to be told. HOWEVER...in a certain context, and you need to apologize not for telling the truth, but because it hurt the person involved." And it also had a particularly harsh amount of cruelty in it, as well. After her notebook is read, the other kids stalk her, make her have no peace and quiet no matter where she goes, they ostracize her, etc... It's not the typical kind of bullying that you see in most kids' films or shows. i.e., "name-calling and the occasional beating up." On the contrary, it goes quite further than that.
No other kid's film before or since (that I've seen, anyway) captured the cruelty that young children can inflict upon each other, as well as the anger and anguish of suffering through it, and also taking revenge against it. The revenge scenes, though funny in their own way, have an underlying theme of "wait...is this even right for her to do, no matter how much we may be rooting for her to do it?" And of course, the bathroom scene. "Because he doesn't love you..." Remember that? Even as a young kid, that scene always really struck me and made me think "Whoa...I think this may be the point she's gone too far in getting even." If I'm not mistaken, right after that scene, she's in her room, crying facedown on her bed, feeling horrible about what she's said and done to her tormentors, thinking that now there's no way she can ever get her friends back. Which of course, makes the "retraction" scene when she starts editing the school newspaper, all the more heartwarming.
yes, I may be gushing, haha. But I can't help but love this film. Nickelodeon took a big chance with this, and it was a smart move.