Saturday, 6 April 2013

The Odd Life Of Timothy Green (2012, Dir. Peter Hedges, USA) (Cert: U) **


 

Starring: Jennifer Garner, Joel Edgerton, CJ Adams

 

Despite trying every biological method available, Cindy (Garner) and Jim (Edgerton) Green are unable to have a child. Devastated by this, the couple compile a written series of notes of the qualities they would want their child to have and bury it in a box outside. When a freak rainstorm hits that night, the two discover a young boy named Timothy (Adams) who claims to be their child.

 

The Odd Life Of Timothy Green is indeed odd; as you would expect of a film where its titular character has leaves sprouting off of his ankles. Aside from the eccentricities however, the film is rather mawkish and very poorly written. Jennifer Garner in particular seems to be trying really hard to put in a great performance, but you can only do so much with material that lurches into one-dimensional characters and weird holes in terms of logic. The female, sort of, love interest for Timothy is initially regarded as troublesome, though there’s no real reason for it, and various other characters are just mean-spirited adversaries with no motivation or cause for such hostility. On a technical level, there’s nothing really poor about the film but with a soppish and badly constructed story around a not very engrossing cast (the brilliant M. Emmett Walsh has way too little screentime) make this one to miss.

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