‘Martian Child’ not down to earth
It’s clear that summer is over at the theaters when the fare
goes from explosions and action-packed films about alien robot
transformers to stories about widowed men adopting children. The
winter months often bring more thoughtful movies to the screen as
the holidays approach, but that doesn’t always mean these films are
better.
‘Martian Child’ not down to earth
It’s clear that summer is over at the theaters when the fare goes from explosions and action-packed films about alien robot transformers to stories about widowed men adopting children. The winter months often bring more thoughtful movies to the screen as the holidays approach, but that doesn’t always mean these films are better.
I went to see “Martian Child” this weekend even though I knew the story line would be hard to pull off without becoming too saccharine. The story is about a man whose fiancee or wife – it’s not really clear in the movie – decides to adopt a little boy with serious emotional problems. His significant other was adopted and wanted to adopt a child with him before she died. The little boy, Dennis (Bobby Coleman), hides inside a box at the shelter where he is living whenever he is outside. The shaggy-haired boy with pale skin wears a weight belt to keep him from floating away and he carries around a camera with no film. He believes he is from Mars, and when he completes his mission, his family will come back for him.
David (John Cusack) is still grieving the loss of his loved one, Marie, when he decides to take a chance on Dennis. He was, after all, a weird kid himself who imagined he was from another planet. He lost himself in science fiction and made a career of it as a writer – and it was apparently a very successful career because he has a pretty fancy house and car. David’s sister Liz (Joan Cusack) discourages him from adopting a disturbed child, but David says he can get not bringing a child into the world, “but how can you argue against loving one that is already here?”
The movie then deals with the ups and downs David and Dennis face as they try to make a life together.
Joan and John are real-life brother and sister and they’ve starred in movies as such for years. The dialogue between David and Liz is the best in the movie – it feels like an older sister trying to protect her kid brother from getting hurt in the scenes they share together. In addition, Liz offers some comic relief in a movie that tends to take itself too seriously. She draws laughs when she refers to her own children as the Omen 1 and Omen 2.
Based on a book by David Gerrold, the screenplay was written by Seth Bass and Jonathan Tolins. The story had potential, but there are moments in the movie that they just didn’t pull off well enough. They set viewers up early in the movie for some good moments, but when the goods are delivered they fall short. At one point Dennis promises to give David a Martian wish and so the whole movie we waited for David to use his wish. He does, but it sort of falls flat.
Also at the beginning of the movie Liz tells her boys to stop wrestling with David’s dog Somewhere because the dog is so old. So we expected something to go wrong with the dog and that it would be a turning point for Dennis. Instead the little boy stays completely emotionless and just goes through the motions of comforting David. All it did was make us cry and my sister says the next movie I pick better be upbeat because the last two have been depressing enough to elicit tears.
The supporting cast includes Harlee (Amanda Peet) as David and his deceased fiancee’s friend and Jeff (Oliver Platt) as David’s agent. Harlee’s character never really feels all that developed. We know she is supposed to be David’s love interest, but even that doesn’t really go anywhere. Jeff only shows up sporadically to bug David about his pending deadline for a draft on his new book. It is supposed to be a sequel to his latest hit, which was made into a Hollywood film, but life with Dennis makes him see that real life can be more interesting than fiction.
The most frustrating part of the movie is that throughout we see all of Dennis’ problems – he steals from other children, he talks in “Martian” when he is stressed, and he refuses to go out in public without extreme sun protection – but David and the social workers never deal with the issue in the most logical way. A boy like Dennis should be in counseling for his extreme delusions, but instead we are supposed to believe that love is enough to bring him back down to earth.
The movie has good moments, but overall doesn’t reach the heights it could have. Only the acting of John and Joan Cusack, and Bobby Coleman, make it worth while.
