The Odd Life of Timothy Green

Aimed squarely at Middle America but with no audience in mind, The Odd Life of Timothy Green is a modern Pinocchio story so boring it makes We Bought a Zoo look like a high octane action thriller.

Set in Stanleyville, a fictional town where the main industry is pencil-manufacturing, Peter Hedges' family film concerns Cindy and Jim Green (Jennifer Garner and Joel Edgerton), a sweet couple who can't conceive and are advised to pursue adoption. Before throwing in the towel, they compile a list of traits they hope for in their child and bury it in the garden. A mythical rainstorm follows and, before you can say Jiminy Cricket, Timothy Green (CJ Adams) is ‘born’.

With leaves on his legs and a (thankfully not literal) song in his heart, the picture book story that follows is an utterly bland series of events in the life of this happy-go-lucky fairytale boy. In a world filled with 2-dimensional Stanleyvillains, the film's entire premise hangs on an icky cuteness that doesn't last as the plot drags its heels through an Indian summer of nuclear family set pieces. Sadly Hedges' uninspired script didn't wither and die with the autumn leaves, but that's likely to be the fate of his film's box office presence. [Nicola Balkind]