Rating :   59/100                                                                     105 Min       

There is a wonderful heart to this film, in that it focuses on a young family who find out they will never be able to have children and so, in an evening of cathartic desperation, they decide to write out all the things they imagine their child would have been, kind, ‘honest to a fault’ etc. and then they bury the list in an old wooden box in the back garden. A mysterious rain falls and up springs Timothy Green, their fully fledged nine or so years old son from the back garden, replete with leaves genetically attached to his calves.

It’s a nice idea, and the film from there on deals with issues of early, and abrupt, parenthood, and family relations and expectations. Unfortunately, it does so in an all too breezy way, and for the most part the story doesn’t prove engaging. The final third does deliver more on the emotional side of things and it is a spirited performance from the family members – Joel Edgerton and Jennifer Garner as the parents, and CJ Adams as Green, with a host of other recognisable faces appearing throughout, including David Morse and Dianne Wiest. Overall a nice, simple film, if a little flimsy – fine for young family viewing.