Film

In the early 1990s, single gay sci-fi writer David Gerrold adopted a troubled eight-year-old who claimed to be a martian (a defense typical of abused and abandoned kids). Gerrold later wrote a novel based loosely on the experience. One point of the novel, retained for this so-so film, is that weird isn’t necessarily bad and normality is vastly overrated.

Of course, in a Hollywood film you can be weird all you want, but not a gay adoptive father. So David (Cusack, never ever convincing as a sci-fi geek) has been transformed into a straight widower who still hasn’t fully let go of his grief. He adopts Dennis (Coleman, exuding weirdness from every pore and avoiding the usual cute-kid gimmicks), who claims his mission on earth is to learn about humanity. Can you feel a big speech on the horizon about how we’re all on that mission? Don’t worry, screenwriters Jonathan Tolins and Seth E. Bass (the writing team behind Twilight of the Golds) deliver. They don’t totally homogenize the material, but they do make sure it conforms to expectations: David and Dennis heal each other quicker than you can say “Oprah.”

Peet is stuck in the boring role of David’s supportive friend with whom he obviously belongs. Their tentative steps toward romance, straight out of a sitcom, are an unnecessary distraction from the intermittently engaging scenes between David and Dennis.