The Odd Life of Timothy Green

This Disney, movie-of-the-week-style, magical realism melodrama about a childless couple who wish for a kid and discover that one has grown from their garden, is so earnest and saccharine that it is pretty hard to get through the fist half. However, when it shifts into the second half and begins to shamelessly rip off the climaxes of about six other classic film comedies it becomes completely unforgivable. It is sad to think that this movie is from the man who wrote the novel and screenplay for What’s Eating Gilbert Grape? How can someone capable of real narrative poetry have created these platitudinous characters? The antagonists in this movie are such two-dimensional meanies that I would have thought the script was written by an 8 year-old. And just who exactly is this movie for? It certainly can't be for family viewing, as I don't think most kids can relate to the struggles of an infertile couple whose greatest dream in life is become obnoxious, self-congratulatory helicopter-parents.