Secondhand Lions

A family film set on a farm in Texas. Walter is fourteen. His mother leaves him with two elderly great-uncles so she can go off with an unreliable man. Hub and Garth talk to nobody, do not go into town and chase salesmen off with a shotgun. A rumour circulates locally: the two of them have a fortune hidden somewhere. Walter has to spend the summer there. In time Garth begins telling him about their youth: Africa, the French Foreign Legion, a sheikh, a woman and a love that lasted years. The film's idea is not whether what is told is true but what the story gives the boy. Hub's speech to some young men in one scene says it directly: some things need believing not because they are true but because they are worth believing. Robert Duvall plays Hub, Michael Caine plays Garth and Haley Joel Osment plays Walter. Tim McCanlies directed. A warm choice for anyone who likes family films and storytelling as fable. For a viewer looking for realism, the flashbacks are deliberately exaggerated and the film presents that exaggeration as a choice.