Disney’s ‘The Odd Life of Timothy Green’ Movie Review #TimothyGreen

Thanks to the in-laws in town vis­it­ing (& lots of extra help around the house), I was able to attend an advanced screen­ing of The Odd Life of Tim­o­thy Green with a good friend a cou­ple of weeks ago. I was so excited for a cou­ple hour break at what looked like a great “mom” movie. And, it was indeed great. I should have brought tis­sues though–especially in my hor­monal, post­par­tum state! I cried off and on for the entire 100 minutes!

About the movie:

Acad­emy Award®–nominated director/writer Peter Hedges brings enchant­ment to the screen with Disney’s “The Odd Life of Tim­o­thy Green.” It’s the inspir­ing, mag­i­cal story of a hap­pily mar­ried cou­ple, Cindy and Jim Green (Jen­nifer Gar­ner and Joel Edger­ton), who can’t wait to start a fam­ily but can only dream about what their child would be like. When young Tim­o­thy (CJ Adams) shows up on their doorstep one stormy night, Cindy and Jim—and their small town of Stanleyville—learn that some­times the unex­pected can bring some of life’s great­est gifts.

Thoughts:

I loved this movie, but it was a really emo­tional one for me. Per­haps the fact that I had just had a baby when see­ing it made it worse, but I’m pretty sure I would have been emo­tional any­way. The movie essen­tially opens with Cindy (Gar­ner) and Jim (Edger­ton) being told that although they’ve tried every­thing pos­si­ble, they are not able to have a child. Cue the tears. I couldn’t help but think of all of my friends strug­gling with this very thing. Friends who have lit­er­ally tried every­thing and still don’t have a baby. It breaks my heart.

As Cindy decides that it’s time to move on (emerg­ing from the baby­less nurs­ery with a red, tear stained face), Jim isn’t in that place yet. He doesn’t want to give up. And with that, they begin to write notes of attrib­utes that their kid would have had. I loved this scene (part of it is in the trailer)! Then, after the light­heart­ed­ness of it wears off & real­ity sets in, they care­fully & lov­ingly place all those lit­tle notes in a wooden box and bury it in the gar­den, sym­bol­i­cally lay­ing to rest their dream of hav­ing a child.  Cue the tears again. 

And, once again, I was reminded of friends, specif­i­cally one old friend in par­tic­u­lar.… only she didn’t have to just bury dreams & notes in a lit­tle wooden box. She had to bury her pre­cious baby girl in a lit­tle wooden box. After 3 years of try­ing, appoint­ments, and treat­ments, they were finally about to have the baby they’d been dream­ing about. Then, she went in for a rou­tine 24 week appoint­ment and her baby girl’s heart­beat was gone. Dev­as­tat­ing. How I wish a Tim­o­thy Green could come out of the dreams buried in the gar­den for all of my friends strug­gling with preg­nancy loss & infertility.

In the movie, after a mag­i­cal event or divine inter­ven­tion (the movie doesn’t really sug­gest one or the other), Tim­o­thy does indeed emerge from the gar­den, “grown” just for Cindy and Jim. And, from there, they get to expe­ri­ence the joys of par­ent­hood with their sweet (but dif­fer­ent) Timothy.

I loved watch­ing all the fam­ily moments that took place. In many ways, I felt like I was watch­ing life to come (since Tim­o­thy is 10) with our 3 lit­tle guys here (and of course, that made me emo­tional too. Lol!). So, it espe­cially warmed my heart to see all the excite­ment and  joy from Cindy & Jim as they expe­ri­enced every­thing with Tim­o­thy. From a par­ent­ing per­spec­tive, it was great to watch– all the fun moments, the mis­takes, the learn­ing, the rela­tion­ship between Jim & Cindy as they make par­ent­ing deci­sions. There are many deep con­cepts and lots of take­aways from the movie… The love of fam­ily; not tak­ing kids & fam­ily for granted; it’s ok to be dif­fer­ent; the impor­tance of liv­ing in the moment.

I think it’s a must-see for par­ents! Now the ques­tion…is it “ok” for kids?! Absolutely, in the sense that there is noth­ing inap­pro­pri­ate at all. The only thing to con­sider is whether your child could under­stand and/or would be ok with the deeper top­ics/con­cepts in the film. It would have been a bit much for Big Brother (who’s 5). But, I think kids closer to Timothy’s age (10) and older would really ben­e­fit from see­ing the film. It would be great to watch together as a family!

The Odd Life of Tim­o­thy Green hits the­aters every­where on Wednes­day, August 15th!!

Have YOU seen the movie or are you plan­ning on going? If you’ve seen it, what did you think?

Dis­clo­sure: I saw this movie at a free press screen­ing at the invi­ta­tion of Dis­ney.  All opin­ions and expe­ri­ences are my own and your opin­ion of the movie may dif­fer from mine.