Full-bodied spirit: Finally, a tasteful family film

The Odd Life of Timothy Green is a warm and lovely fantasy, the kind of full-bodied family film that is being pushed aside in favor of franchises and slam-bang confusion. On a picture-postcard farm in the middle of endlessly rolling hills where it is always Indian summer, a lovable boy comes into the life of a childless couple and brings along great joy and wisdom. 

Timothy isn't born and he isn't adopted. He seems to have grown in the garden. The movie very wisely makes no attempt to explain how this happened. His new parents have tried everything to conceive a child of their own, and one desperate night they open a bottle of red wine and start making a list of the things their perfect child should have. This they put in a box and bury in their garden, and after a torrential downpour and a lightning storm– why, there's Timothy (CJ Adams), covered with wet earth and with leaves growing from his legs. Makes perfect sense to me. How about you?

"You can call us Cindy and Jim," say the bewildered Greens (Jennifer Garner and Joel Edgerton). Timothy says he'll just call them Mom and Dad. Awww. This clear-eyed, beautiful little boy has a knack for saying tactful things, but a tendency to lack information you might think he'd know– for example, the difference between the two goals in a soccer game. Full Review