Anyway, though it was used disparagingly, if you really understand the film's whole point, the comparison is fairly apt. Though the aforementioned accuser meant to say that Pollyanna and I were obsessively cheerful and denied the harsh realities of things, she was wrong about us both. 

The Pollyanna of the film was quite aware of the harsh realities of life, having grown up as the poor child of poor missionaries who had many hardships and little else. Her parents had taught her though that there's always a reason to be glad in a situation, and to look for that glimmer of hope through "the glad game". Luckily, she learned this from them before they were killed, taking from her the one thing she actually had: sparklingly loving parents.

When she was then sent to live with her aunt, she explained the glad game with the example of when her family received a charity Christmas package, and she was hoping desperately for something she had always wanted: a doll. Instead, she found crutches. Her parents consoled her, and made a little "glad game" joke that they could be glad she didn't need them!

This perspective enabled her to keep up her enjoyment of life despite its "unfairnesses" when she was abandoned to the sour and brooding world of her aunt. Naturally, her aunt was the opposite of herself, having wealth, power, position and practically owning a whole town (in 1913). Yet despite having everything, she could enjoy none of it because what she had more of than anything was pessimism and spite.

The movie, of course, centers on Pollyanna's attempts to make a new life for herself in the new situation, and brightening the dark corners of the town along the way. Just like in life, there were plenty of people who were accustomed to being more miserable than their situation, and she did her best to show them the better way. She genuinely cared about them and their happiness, offering them her hope and compassion without really requiring they change.

Toward the end of the movie something happens where she finally gets something she had long wanted, but at the same time has to accept that she also ends up needing what she hadn't wanted at all. (I won't spoil it with the details.) That acceptance comes so hard, though, that there is no bright side in her eyes, and she's ready to just curl up and be lost in the darkness.

It was then Pollyanna who needed all those others to turn the lens of clarity back onto her. She needed to find a way to see the small light in the darkness and turn toward it, so she could follow that one ray of hope out of the deep pit and back into a life worth living.

I've been there.

Several times.

And in some of those times, I stayed in that pit longer than I'd like to admit. It just wasn't worth it... except for teaching me that with the limited time and energy I have in this world, it's a tragedy to waste it on any form of misery. I'm still working on that lesson, but I think I'm getting better.

That's why I'm often sharing the bright side, the silvery lining, or even just the little laugh.  The lightness of it illuminates just a few steps forward toward the better way.

Besides, it's a heck of a lot more fun!