This is a wholly delightful, heart-warming movie about exactly what the tag-line says: a man becoming a father, and a boy becoming a son.
The key conceit - a boy who thinks he's from Mars - provides a fine vehicle for exploring a whole series of themes: what's real and what's not; imagination as a means of coping; building trust; loss and healing. The script provides us with a story that very effectively ties all these earthly elements together by means of a Martian connection that is pleasing throughout.
The whole cast does a fine job, with John Cusack providing an exceptionally outstanding performance as David, the boy's adoptive father. Young Bobby Coleman does a fine job as the boy Dennis.
I especially liked much of the cinematography and scene visuals. This is a very visual movie. The scenes of David and Dennis amid the Christmas lights in front of the house were to me very, very appealing. So were the repeated visuals in which we saw a face through a window that partially reflected other things, often lights. The lights on the ceiling in Dennis' room, and the use of photography by both Dennis and David to help convey and capture and mediate reality ... all of these helped reinforce the credibility of the main conceit.
If you see this movie, be sure to stay for the closing credits, presented amid a pastiche of photos and scrapbook-like visuals that actually provide a quick review of the whole movie.
The key conceit - a boy who thinks he's from Mars - provides a fine vehicle for exploring a whole series of themes: what's real and what's not; imagination as a means of coping; building trust; loss and healing. The script provides us with a story that very effectively ties all these earthly elements together by means of a Martian connection that is pleasing throughout.
The whole cast does a fine job, with John Cusack providing an exceptionally outstanding performance as David, the boy's adoptive father. Young Bobby Coleman does a fine job as the boy Dennis.
I especially liked much of the cinematography and scene visuals. This is a very visual movie. The scenes of David and Dennis amid the Christmas lights in front of the house were to me very, very appealing. So were the repeated visuals in which we saw a face through a window that partially reflected other things, often lights. The lights on the ceiling in Dennis' room, and the use of photography by both Dennis and David to help convey and capture and mediate reality ... all of these helped reinforce the credibility of the main conceit.
If you see this movie, be sure to stay for the closing credits, presented amid a pastiche of photos and scrapbook-like visuals that actually provide a quick review of the whole movie.