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Directed By
Menno Meyjes
Written By:
Seth Bass, Jonathan Tolins
Cast:
John Cusack, Joan Cusack, Bobby Coleman, Amanda Peet, Sophie Okonedo, Oliver Platt, Richard Schiff, David Kaye, Courtney Taylor Burness, Alyssa Shafer, Kirsten Williamson, Colin Ford, Lauro Chartrand, Anita Brown, Angela Besharah, Robert Clarke, Alberto Ghisi, Erica Jones, Jessica Amlee, Zak Ludwig, Suzy Joachim, Taya Calicetto, Andrew McIlroy, Jonathan Holmes, Samuel Patrick Chu, Carmen Moore, Julianna Rose, Beverley Breuer, Doris Berg Coleman, Maria DiMartino, Daniel Pepper, Wilson Kwok, Dan Rogers, Mike Jones, Greg Doyle, Tyler Moretti, Dale Ballance, Phil Gonyer, Bill Hadden, Mike Rogers, David Munro Jr., Chris McKague, Ben Cairns
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Martian Child (2007)
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Movie Review by Zara 
November 3rd, 2007
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Schmaltzy... but it works
This movie is geared to make you cry from pretty much the on set. And it's damn effective.
It's also clever, smart, funny and sensitive without being condescending to the viewer. Does it go a little over the deep end some times? Sure... but never for so long that you get an upset stomach.
A widower who decides to adopt a child two years after the death of his wife because his wife was an adopted child, what I liked about this angle is that while he is still moved with sadness at his loss, he's also gotten to a point where he's trying to heal himself. Eventually, we all have to let go a little. It's a part of momentum. Sink or swim. The whole movie pretty much handles that concept deftly, including deciding that being different and doing things at your own pace can never be measured by anyone else's standards but your own.
You know, the old "those who matter won't mind and those who mind won't matter" theory.
Having a child of my own who is approximately the same age as the little boy in this (Bobby Coleman, who is absolutely adorable and doesn't overdo things, which is refreshing) also made it particularly emotional for me. Watching it with her, she hugged my arm in that way that your child will, as if to reach out, like Cusack's character says, just to hold onto someone and let them know you're there.
Everything that is in the trailer for this movie holds up, but what you don't really get a chance to see is that it can be perfectly, wonderfully subtle in the middle of all the emotion, in particular with Peet and Cusack's possible romance (which is handled so perfectly, I wish I could physically hold it up to all filmmakers and scream, "See?!?! THIS is how you do it!"
This is a really, really, really good movie.
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