The Odd Life of Timothy Green starts out with Joel Edgerton and Jennifer Garner at the adoption agency telling their story. They want to adopt a child, but the thing is, we know the film is about them as a couple with a young boy that magically comes into their lives. If you’ve seen the trailer, you know how it starts. What I didn’t expect was for the story to be told as a flashback.
Cindy and Jim (Garner and Edgerton) are unable to have kids of their own. They return home, and in order to move forward with their lives and deal with the grief they share, they wind up imagining what a child of theirs would be like. When it gets to be too much, they put the notes in a box and bury it in the yard. In the middle of the night, after a storm where the rain fell upwards, they are presented with a child of approximately 9 or 10 years old.
Of course the sudden appearance of a child can complicate things.
Over the course of the film, Timothy and his parents muddle through things, make mistakes, love, laugh and learn. Don’t tug on the plot threads too much, like how Timothy is admitted to school with no record of how old he is to determine which grade may be appropriate or whatever. This isn’t a lesson in realism, it’s a fable, a modern fairy tale, and if you look at it as such, The Odd Life Of Timothy Green is a little magical, which is nice.
While the ending is inevitable, I still felt a tug on my heart, and that’s a good thing. Things weren’t over the top, and while predictable, events played out the way they should have. There was an unrealistic quality to events, but of course that is how it is with fables and fairy tales. It wasn’t, however, so unrealistic the audience is completely removed from the story.
The Odd Life Of Timothy Green is rated “PG” and it could be a family film, I don’t see it appealing to younger kids. Special features include an audio commentary, a couple of deleted scenes, a promotional featurette, another featurette on the music and a music video. Not a bad package for this type of film.
If you’re inclined to watch these types of films. The Odd Life Of Timothy Green is a pleasant couple of hours. It’s not “must see” but there’s also no reason to skip it.