Joseph Mazzello

Joseph Mazzello plays Joe in Simon Birch. Richard Kelly, reviewing it, finds him very likable as Joe and says the film's other child performer comes off well too. Kelly is hard on everything around them: the cheerful pop songs of the sixties are ladled over the scenes like period sauce, and the score, he writes, spoon-feeds the audience. The same notice adds that an experienced adult actor looks uneasy loaning his naturalistic depth to this schoolboy fable.