Nancy Drew
Nancy Drew moves to Los Angeles and in typical Drew fashion, immediately stumbles upon a mystery concerning a dead movie star and her inheritance. Nancy soon discovers that the rude needling from her new classmates is the least of her worries as she’s almost run over by a car and nearly blown up diffusing a bomb. Nancy’s luck runs out when the bad guys get the drop on her and put Chloroform over mouth! Nancy is taken by complete surprise and barely has time to fight before the anesthetic hits her nostrils and turns out her lights! They drug Nancy in broad daylight and make her go nighty night! The attack is so effective, so precise, people walk right past the vehicle with no idea there’s a young girl inside, fully anesthetized, chloroformed out of her mind! Nancy has no idea what hit her as her abductors drive her to their hideout. Nancy comes to drugged but quickly escapes her attackers. Nancy feels foolish for having had her nose and mouth shoved into a rag that knocked her out. But the resilient sleuth marches forward, solves the case, then watches the men who drugged her go down.
Nancy Drew (Emma Roberts) and her father, Carson (Tate Donovan), move from River Heights for a few months and rent a house in Los Angeles, due to it being the home of the murdered movie star, Dehlia Draycott. Despite the mystery, Nancy’s father has forbidden her from further sleuthing and encourages her to focus on high school and being normal. Nancy struggles to fit in at her new school, only befriending a boy named Corky (Josh Flitter), and realizes that the sleuthing world is the only place she fits in causing her to decide to solve the Draycott mystery. She traces Draycott’s disappearance to having had a child and giving it up for adoption in privacy, and learns that a “Jane Brighton” (Rachael Leigh Cook) is Draycott’s sole beneficiary of a will that has since disappeared. Nancy receives a threatening phone call telling her to get off the case, and contacts her father’s business associate, Dashiel Biedermeyer (Barry Bostwick), the lawyer of the Draycott estate, to assist her with the case.
Meanwhile, as an early birthday present, Nancy’s father presents her with the blue Roadster she left back at home in River Heights and along side it came her boyfriend, Ned (Max Thieriot), who understands her persistence in sleuthing and finds himself assisting Nancy with the Draycott mystery. Corky becomes jealous of Nancy and Ned’s close relationship and tries his best to get Nancy’s attention. The trio spend numerous hours together, also discovering an underground passageway to the neighbor’s basement, which is rented by Leshing (Marshall Bell), the groundskeeper to the Draycott estate.
One afternoon, a tearful Jane arrives on Nancy’s doorstep and announces that her daughter has been taken away from her. She knows that none of the charges of misconduct are true, and reveals that after Nancy’s initial visit, a man showed up on her doorstep to threaten her. Nancy demands that her father take up Jane’s case; he agrees, and Jane stays with them. While watching Dehlia Draycott movie, Nancy realizes that Draycott must have hidden her revised will in a prop from one of her movies.
Nancy discovers the will in a Chinatown antique shop but, as she walks back to her car, two thugs grab her by her arms and legs and bury her nostrils in a Chloroform soaked rag!! Nancy doesn’t stand a chance as the Chloroform hits her nostrils and she’s stunned by the stench! Nancy comes to in an abandoned theater but manages to escape when the thugs who drugged her underestimate how long the Chloroform will keep her out. Nancy and the thugs get into a car chase in which Nancy crashes and winds up in the emergency room. Her father, along with Biedermeyer, arrives and demands to know what is going on. She admits to her secret sleuthing and explains about Draycott’s hidden will. Biedermeyer offers them a ride home so he can sign a business deal with Mr. Drew. Nancy discovers that Biedermeyer is the one who was disinherited by Dehlia’s will (signing his papers with a large “Z”) and concludes that he is Dehlia Draycott’s supposed love, and jumps out of the moving car. Nancy manages to make it all the way home and is caught by Biedermeyer, who threatens to “squeeze it out of her.” Nancy asks him as to why he killed Dehlia, and he replies with saying that Dehlia went a bit crazy after her reappearance, that Jane is not his daughter, but Leshing’s, and demands the will. Nancy kicks Biedermyer in the shin and escapes, but is once again cornered by Biedermeyer and his henchmen. Leshing arrives via the secret passageway and knocks the henchmen unconscious. The will is restored to its rightful owner. Jane is able to get back her daughter and converts the Draycott mansion into a home for single mothers, and the Drews return to River Heights. As Nancy watches a video sent by Jane and her new Draycott Home for Single Mothers she is a bit sad that the mystery is over. She goes outside to see Ned adjusting her car. They talk and they both lean in for a kiss. Right after she gets a phone call for a new mystery in Scotland. And she is just as cheerful as ever.
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