Sunday, August 26, 2012

The Odd Life of Timothy Green

The main reason I wanted to see this was because of Joel Edgerton. I've been a big fan of his every since I saw him in Warrior last year. Plus I saw the trailer for this awhile back and it looked cute. Certainly a lot better than the crap Disney seems to put out lately.

This movie is about a married couple named Jim (Joel Edgerton) & Cindy (Jennifer Garner) Green. They live in a beautiful small town (can't remeber the name of it but apparently it's the pencil capital of the world) and seem to have a perfect life except for one thing- they're unable to have a child of their own. One night over a bottle of wine, they write down what they hope their child would have been like and bury these notes in the backyard in their garden. A few hours later, a 10 year old boy shows up in their house covered in dirt. His name is Timothy and right away he starts calling them Mom & Dad. Timothy seems to have literally grown from the garden. He even has leaves on his legs. Is it silly & ridiculous? Yes, but this is fantasy & a Disney movie kind of just have to go with it. Timothy is basically the perfect child and almost everyone seems to accept him as Jim & Cindy's son. He makes an impression on anyone he meets.

I found the whole story to be very sweet & charming. It's clearly aimed at kids (I'd say maybe older ones) but adults can enjoy it as well. Infact, at the showing I went to there seemed to be more adults than kids.

The characters overall were likeable. Joel was great as usual and it was nice to see him in a family movie like this. Even Jennifer Garner was good (I'm not realy the biggest fan of her as an actress) and seemed to have decent chemistry with Joel. Of course the big scene stealer was the little boy playing Timothy (CJ Adams). He was just adorable and really looked like he could be Joel & Jennifer's kid. My only big complaint was that I wish they had developed some of the characters better (specifically the minor ones). I found them really interesting and would haved liked to known more about them.

The musical score was absoluetly beautiful and really seemed to fit with the movie. I'll definetly be putting it on my iPod at some point.

While far from perfect, The Odd Life of Timothy Green is an enjoyable movie that's very sweet and something the whole family can enjoy. Just be sure to bring plenty of tissues because it's also quite the tearjerker at times. I haven't cried like that at a movie in awhile. Still, I highly recommend it :)

My Rating: 8/10