Pauls Valley, Oklahoma —
While it may be more of a guilty pleasure than my usual high octane action fare, I must admit every now and again even I enjoy watching a good old fashioned sappy family film. I’m rather surprised my mother isn’t an alcoholic after about the 30th time I watched “Milo and Otis” or “Homeward Bound” growing up, but she’s still mostly sober and I can’t help still feel some pesky inner glow when watching something from the genre.
Sure, I can only take so much myself, but this latest selection manages not to drown the audience in aw shucks and delivers several clean laughs in the meantime. It likely won’t be shopped around for too many Oscars later on, but it gets at least a B for an evening well spent. “The Odd Life of Timothy Green” appropriately comments on the misguided expectations we place on each other and gives a middle finger to individuals who try to force us to be as miserable as they are.
My first thought is the plot presented may be one of the most therapeutic flicks for those who have struggled to start their own families, providing a little hope in the message. Case in point is the story presented by a couple who have had no luck in having a child, Cindy (Jennifer Garner) and Jim Green (Joel Edgerton) of Stanleyville North Carolina.
The movie kicks off with them deciding to adopt, but first must convince the appropriate officials by recounting the unusual joy they had in learning through a short lived experience with a boy named Timothy (CJ Adams). It’s a hard pill to swallow as he basically is created by their wishes for a perfect child in a box buried in the garden, but a positive force that changes an entire community. It has some of the best character interactions audiences will really appreciate from a quirky relative named Uncle Bub (M. Emmet Walsh) and an outcast young girl at school named Joni Jerome (Odeya Rush) to the grumpy matron of a pencil company named Ms. Crudstaff (Dianne Wiest).
The end result is something I reccomend for all ages of kids and adults who don’t mind being reminded of how immature we all can be. It’s not too rough, but it does a good job of revealing the inner softy in most of us.
That said, there are times when it gets a little Lifetime television movie sappy and it seems over before we’re ready to let the little guy go. In some ways it would not have hurt to drag out some of the scenes a bit longer. Thus, the final verdict for “The Odd Life of Timothy Green” is three and one fourth out of five vines.
Movie viewing experience courtesy of the Royal Twin Theater of Pauls Valley.
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