The Odd Life of Timothy Green

The Odd Life of Timothy Green (2012) is an openly sentimental Disney family film and never pretends otherwise. A couple who cannot have children write down everything they imagined about the child they wanted, put the notes in a box, and bury it in the garden. That night, after rain, a boy walks out of the soil. His name is Timothy, he has leaves growing on his legs, and nobody asks where he came from. The film makes no attempt to explain this as fantasy mechanics. It leaves it as a fable. The real subject is parenthood: the gap between the child two people imagined and the child in front of them, and learning to accept it. The problem is that it signals every emotion with score and several scenes are far too explicit. An adult viewer may find that manufactured. For anyone watching with small children it does the job. CJ Adams plays Timothy as strange rather than adorable, which is the right choice. It runs 105 minutes. Good for: family films, fables, and gentle drama about parenting. Comfortable with children. Less good for: it handles death and loss and the ending is sad. Adults wanting nuance or surprise will find it flat.