Once upon a time, the world met a girl with a lot to learn about life, including why you can never wear enough blue eye shadow.
Her name was Vada Sultenfuss, a quick-witted and candid 11-year-old living in a funeral parlor with her widowed dad, struggling with hypochondria, bossing around her best friend, crushing on her school teacher and generally figuring out life on the cusp of womanhood. She was, of course, the star character My Girl, the hit coming-of-age film starring Veep‘s Anna Chlumsky and Home Alone‘s Macaulay Culkin along with Dan Aykroyd and Jamie Lee Curtis.
With Chlumsky as Vada and Culkin as her sweet sidekick Thomas J, the ’70s-set movie served as a moving tale of growing up and facing puberty, friendship, change and loss. For a generation of youngsters who grew up with the film in the ’90s, it was a constant in the VCR player.
Now, as Friday, Nov. 27 marks the 29th anniversary of its release, there’s no better time to revisit Vada’s world—and everything we learned from it.