Greg's diary — or journal, as he'd prefer you call it — is filled with the details of a million little humiliations shared with his fat, endearingly easygoing friend Rowley (Robert Capron), a kind of Zen master in the shape of a Pillsbury doughboy. And the movie, a jaunty and forthright production with a lively look reflecting the book's illustrated pages, does a great job of being in two places at once: In the head and gangly bodies of kids, and in the hearts of those of us who have survived grades 6-8. Director Thor Freudenthal (Hotel for Dogs) and his team of writers are at the top of their game in the case of the Cheese Touch, a hideous ostracization that befalls any kid unlucky (or unaware) enough to touch a slice of Swiss cheese, mottled with toxic mold, that has stuck to the schoolyard blacktop for eons. Don't ask why the Cheese Touch results in nuclear cooties. It just does.
