It would be fair to say the audience for an Ann Arbor showing of the movie “Flipped” Friday night did just that. But it would be hard to dislike a film with many scenes shot in the area and that included some local kids as extras.

Bryce Loski (Callan McAuliffe) and Juli Baker (Madeline Carroll) are unlikely love interests in "Flipped."

“Flipped” was filmed in Ann Arbor, Saline and Manchester in July and August of last year, with locations that included Thurston Elementary School and Saline Middle School. As part of the set, a temporary house — the backdrop for several key scenes in the movie — was built on the Thurston Nature Area prairie.

The crowd for the 7 p.m. screening at Rave Motion Pictures — heavy with folks from the Thurston area eager to see how the movie turned out — nearly filled the auditorium, and the atmosphere felt something like a block party.

“We can identify about two thirds of the people here,” observed Byron Bunker, who was there with his 11-year old daughter Madison, who was a student at Thurston when “Flipped” was shot (her sister, Austin, appears in the movie but wasn’t at the screening).

As the movie started, the crowd buzzed with excitement. “It’s here, it’s here,” one voice sounded in the darkness. A quiet cheer went up as one of the extras was recognized, and applause broke out at the end. Another round of applause greeted the credits, which thanked the Ann Arbor Public Schools, Thurston Elementary and Fleetwood Diner (catering, maybe?), and stated the movie was filmed in Michigan. There was some laughter every time the camera cut away to show an overhead view of the house in the Thurston area, as the whole real-life area behind it had been magically erased and a pastoral scene inserted.

“Photoshop,” said Karen Morey, who was at the screening with her 10-year-old daughter Daisy. “It should be the Thurston school yard. And part of the neighborhood scenes were not our neighborhood.”

“They removed a whole subdivision,” added Byron Bunker, he and Morey giving no indication they minded the studio magic.

Rebecca De Mornay and Anthony Edwards play Bryce's parents, Patsy and Steven, in "Flipped."

In the coming-of-age movie, set in 1963 and directed by Rob Reiner, two eighth graders begin to have feelings for each other despite being total opposites. Reviews have accused the movie of being overly sentimental — which it is — but Karen Morey had no problem with that.

“Of course it’s sentimental — we love sentimental,” she said.

Besides its two young protagonists (Callan McAuliffe plays Bryce, while Madeline Carroll stars as Juli), “Flipped” includes some well-known names. Aidan Quinn and Penelope Ann Miller are Juli's parents, while Anthony Edwards and Rebecca De Mornay play Bryce's parents. John Mahoney (the dad in the long-running TV sitcom “Frasier”) plays Bryce’s grandfather, Chet.

Kristen Hayden, 12, who was one of the extras in the movie, was thrilled to see herself up on the big screen.

“It was really cool,” she said, as groups of moviegoers compared notes as the film let out, although she admitted it was hard to find her, since she was part of the crowd in an auditorium scene. But thanks to the movie’s trailer, “we were able to freeze her and find her for her four seconds of fame,” said Emily Thompson, her mom.

“It was four seconds — I counted them,” Hayden said.

The movie didn’t stray far from the young adult novel on which it is based, “Flipped,” by Wendelin Van Draanen, audience members said.

“They were pretty true to the book,” observed Katie Richter, who was part of a mother-daughter book group that focused on Van Draanen’s work. “We were a little worried … but they did it justice.”

Daisy Morey agreed. “It was a lot like the book. They were both pretty good,” she said, adding that she wound up not seeing anyone she knew on screen. “They were probably there, we just didn’t recognize them (thanks to) hair and makeup.”

One young audience member was little disappointed about part of the ending, however.

“He (McAuliffe) should have kissed her in the end,” said Bella Bates, 13, a student at the Rudolf Steiner School in Ann Arbor. “I think it was cool when they flipped,” she added, referring to how the film would play the same scene between the two stars a second time, but from the opposite perspective.

Julie Rupp, also exiting the theater, said she loved the movie, and had some advice for Warner Bros., which has been accused of not giving the film the push it deserves. “They need to market this,” she said of the movies so-far limited release. “It only opened in a few cities. If they would have marketed it, it would have been fine.”

Roger LeLievre is a free-lance writer who covers entertainment for AnnArbor.com.