The Odd Life Of Timothy Green

THE ODD LIFE OF TIMOTHY GREEN

Director : Peter Hedges
Year : 2013
Genre : Fantasy
Rating : **

Based on an original concept by Ahmet Zappa (son of Frank), 'The Odd Life Of Timothy Green' is a strange and misjudged family film from director Peter Hedges. Starring Joel Edgerton and Jennifer Garner, the film tells the fable of a magical young child who rises from the ground to become the son of an infertile couple. Combining the fantastical with moments of heartfelt emotion, 'The Odd Life Of Timothy Green' is clearly intended to be seen as the newest fantasy epic; a film that Frank Capra may have made decades ago or even this year's 'Forrest Gump' or 'The Curious Case Of Benjamin Button'. To it's credit, there a few scattered moments in the movie which are quite emotional and thanks to a good performance from young actor CJ Adams, the film does manage to tug at the heartstrings. However, 'The Odd Life Of Timothy Green' is sadly lumbered with extremely unlikable characters, several very uncomfortable and misguided scenes and has at it's heart a mean-spiritedness which is quite shocking for a Disney film. It's not going to offend anyone and should entertain it's target audience of young and impressionable children. But parents may be shocked at the blatant vindictive nature of the narrative and the cruel and facetious dialogue. Painting a world where children are merely metaphorical punching bags for their own parents worries and objects of collective ridicule, 'The Odd Life Of Timothy Green' is a slap in the face of the politically correct and basic human nature. Spiteful, mean and downright ugly towards it's child characters, this film is the poster for the phrase 'biting the hand that feeds you' and is just another nail in the already closed coffin of the once great Walt Disney company.

Jennifer Garner and Joel Edgerton play the Greens, a happy couple who are told the sad news that they are unable to have children naturally. Open to the idea of adoption, they meet with an adoption officer who questions the viability and the suitability of their pleas. To confirm the belief that they would be good parents, the Greens begin to tell the story of their life with a magical boy named Timothy. One night while lamenting their problems, they decide to exorcise their sorrow by writing the qualities that they would like their child to have and after writing a dozen or so words on pieces of paper, they put them in a wooden box and bury it in the garden. After going back inside, a fierce storm begins and after the deluge, a young boy rises from the ground and proclaims that he is the son of Mr and Mrs Green. As the days go on, Timothy begins to exhibit the qualities that were written on the notes buried in the soil and as more and more people get to know him, the more their lives are changed for the better.

Director Peter Hedges is best known for making such mediocre fare as 'Dan In Real Life' and for writing the screenplay for 'About A Boy' and 'What's Eating Gilbert Grape'. Unfortunately, 'The Odd Life Of Timothy Green' shows that he is a much better writer than director and that he stick to sitting at a keyboard or typewriter rather than sitting behind a camera lens. There are a few moments where the camera work is quite nice, especially at the times where Timothy raises his arms to the sun and resembles a photosynthesising plant, but for the most part the film is very bland and fails to show any sense of invention or even thought. The score is pretty standard for a kids fantasy film and the acting is OK, but for stars of Garner's and Edgerton's calibre it should be so much better. However, it is at the script and character development levels where the movie falters so terribly and it is here where my biggest problems with the film lie. Essentially a morality tale and the exhibition of our hopes and dreams, 'The Odd Life Of Timothy Green' is intended to be a thought provoking and heartfelt look at the fragility of life and the gift of having children. However, due the poor choices and the downright terrible choices made by the parents of the town in which the film is set, the intended message is lost and comes across instead as as a manipulative and narrow minded look at the way children think and the way in which adults view the younger generations.

The central concept of the film is that it is telling the story of 2 people who have to learn from their mistakes and become good parents. At first we see them doing wrong by Timothy and putting their own happiness and dreams first. This is expected for this kind of narrative and I presumed that as the story goes on and the Greens have more of the experience of being parents, they will correct the errors they make and become reliable and loving role models; but here lies the crux of the problem NEITHER PARENT SEEMS TO LEARN FROM THEIR MISTAKES. AT ALL. For example, there is a scene half way through the film where Jennifer Garner follows a young girl who has been talking to Timothy. Finding her to be untrustworthy, Garner stalks her and corners her in the woods where she finds out that the little girl is actually Timothy's friend and is looking out for him. Feeling guilty, Garner says that she is in the wrong for following his friend and vows never to poke into is business again. But less than 20 minutes later, she is seen to be doing the exact same thing! I know that being a parent is hard and there aren't any manuals for being a good mother or father that you can turn to when a predicament arises. But when the central conceit of your film is that these are 2 people who are trying to prove that they would be good role models because they have learned from their past mistakes and you actually fail to exhibit any evidence of this at all, something has gone wrong at both the screenplay and narrative levels of production. As mentioned earlier, this is not due to the talents of the actors on screen who manage to give the most to their horrible archetypes but it is the fault of the direction and the horrible dialogue which drips with cynicism and patronisation.

The cast are generally quite good; Garner and Edgerton are convincing enough as a couple and there are moments when we feel for them, especially at the times where the full extant of their grief is shown. However. their ineptitude and their self centred nature really does prevent us from identifying and more importantly, engaging with them in any way at all. For the most part, we end up disliking them and while both Garner and Edgerton do a pretty good job at portraying the grief and misery caused by the reality of not being able to have children, their characters do not seem to change for the better. In fact, they become nastier and more vindictive when Timothy comes along; forcing him to do things he doesn't want to and they get angry with him when he fails to exhibit any of the gifts or qualities that were essentially assigned to him before his 'growth'. For the Greens, Timothy is little more than a physical embodiment of their hopes, dreams and aspirations, a vessel for their self hatred and a wish to be better. This aspect of their characters only reinforces the disdain we feel towards them and does nothing to prove the fact that they would be good parents to their own natural child or an adoptee.

While clearly the best actor in the film,  CJ Adams plays a complete bore of a character who we are meant to empathise with purely on the basis that he is a child. It almost seems as if Disney sees us as Pavlov's dogs, a mindless audience who are genetically programmed to identify and care for a younger person on screen. Maybe if he was more memorable and was given more to do then we could possibly react to him more, but due to the weak script and little to no character development, Timothy is just another boring character that we have to endure for the best part of 2 hours. This role is sure to bring Adams more work in the future and I would gladly watch him in another film because he does have a way of making us sympathise with him, mostly due to the help of his tiny frame and his big brown eyes which have a brilliant way of attracting the cameras attention.

The town is populated by the regular character types you would expect in a film of this genre; there is the completely forced love interest that does nothing to expand the narrative but manages to make the audience go ''Awww!' at various intervals.There is the matriarchal battle-axe played by Dianne Wiest, who is perceived to be a tight lipped dictator but who is actually hiding a loving and gentle nature and of course, there are the various colourful locals who are sprinkled throughout the film to appear in one scene before they disappear before finally returning for the central scene starring the entire ensemble cast. Much like the central roles, the supporting cast are not at all memorable and only Dianne Wiest stands out in any way at all. It is a shame that a young performer as good as  CJ Adams is surrounded by such bland actors and a terrible script.

For a film that comes from the company that once created some of the greatest family entertainment ever made, 'The Odd Life Of Timothy Green' is completely forgettable, dislikeable and utterly without merit. Better in concept than in execution, it basically escaped my memory as soon as it had finished and I have had to re-watch the film since so that I could write this review. On second viewing, the film isn't any worse but it certainly isn't any better either.