A couple (played by Jennifer Garner and Joel Edgerton) who are unable to have children of their own decide, in a moment of “what if?” fantasy, to write down all the attributes their child might have (loving, honest, talented etc.) on slips of paper, put them in a wooden box and bury it in the garden. They then awake in the middle of the night to find that a boy named Timothy has magically grown in the garden, with leaves growing out of his legs, and the two of them are suddenly thrown into parenthood.
It’s a neat modern-day Disney fantasy concept that you can feel has a lot of goodwill behind it from its creators and cast. There’s something admittedly admirable about the fact that it fully commits to its outlandish premise from start-to-finish, never feeling the need to lay out the mechanics of how this miraculous event came to pass. Frustrating to a degree, yes, but it’s the sort of film you just have to go with.
The problem is the ensuing drama is so dreadfully saccharine that it becomes virtually impossible to buy into the concept much less actually care about the characters in any true sense of the word. Resorting to a derivative and obvious narrative about how Timothy teaches the couple to be good parents and helping each of the various people he comes across with their personal dilemmas, it never lands on the emotional targets it perpetually aims for. Even the potentially sweet sub-lot involving Timothy spending time with a girl that’s too old for him (leading to obligatory scenes of the parents fretting over it) is mishandled.
The lead performances from Garner and Edgerton are the films two strongest points thanks to their very watchable presences, making the most from two thinly written, implausibly nice characters. However, the titular character at the centre of the story (played by relative newcomer CJ Adams) is an annoyingly earnest, angelic child that’s ripped straight from the kind of similarly soppy family-friendly dramas (including writer/director Peter Hedges’ own Dan in Real Life) of which it bears more than a passing resemblance.
There’s nothing odious or mean-spirited in what is ultimately a harmless piece of wish-fulfilment fantasy. Its heart is in the right place but it wears it far too much on its sleeve. Sentimental in all the wrong ways, this is cloying and manipulative viewing with nary a break from its irritatingly sappy ways. Ultimately this is sickly sweet instead of heart-warming.
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The Odd Life of Timothy Green is released in UK cinemas on April 5th.