Martian Child **1/2
Nobody makes sensitivity sexy like John Cusack. He's not the best-looking actor around, he's not wildly versatile (for example, he's rarely done period films) and he never tries to ingratiate himself with the audience.
Nobody makes sensitivity sexy like John Cusack.
He's not the best-looking actor around, he's not wildly versatile (for example, he's rarely done period films) and he never tries to ingratiate himself with the audience.
But the guy quietly radiates decency and soul and I've never met a moviegoer who didn't enjoy watching him.
That likability proves essential in The Martian Child, a film whose collision course with heavy-handed sentimentality is averted (well, mostly) by Cusack's sincere, grounded presence.
He plays David, a writer of popular science-fiction novels and a widower who can't quite fill the emptiness of his solitary life. David has been toying with the idea of adopting a child, and on a trip to a local home for orphans he comes across Dennis (Bobby Coleman), a weird little kid who spends his days inside a big cardboard box.
Dennis, David learns, is a strange case. The kid believes he's been sent to Earth on a research mission from the planet Mars. He stays in the box because he believes the sun will scorch his sensitive alien skin. He steals things from the other kids for use in his studies of terrestrial life.
Without knowing why, David is drawn to the little spaceman. He slips a pair of dark glasses and a tube of sunscreen into Dennis' box, gradually coaxing him out into the fresh air - albeit with an umbrella always close at hand should the sun come out.
This tyke-as-alien bit is a patently improbable plot gimmick (the kid spends half the movie hanging upside down like a bat). But for most of the film's running time, Cusack and young Coleman successfully sell it. Cusack is his usual good-guy self, while Coleman makes Dennis' solemn weirdness less cute than sad and fragile. The kid is so withdrawn (he speaks only in a whisper) that even the slightest hint of normal-child enthusiasm seems like a major breakthrough.
The supporting cast includes Amanda Peet as an old friend of David and his late wife (anyone who doesn't think they'll get together by movie's end probably also responds to e-mails from Nigerian lottery officials). Oliver Platt portrays David's agent and Richard Schiff is a child services official who poses a threat to David and Dennis' happiness. Cusack's sister Joan plays his sister and claims some of the movie's funniest moments, while Anjelica Huston makes a last-reel appearance as a tough book publisher.
The Martian Child was directed by Menno Meyjes, who worked as a writer on several Spielberg projects and clearly learned a few things about handling child actors. The screenplay is by Seth Bass and Jonathon Tolins, who adapted David Gerrold's novel.
The film ends with an emotional crunch that had some audience members at a recent screening openly sobbing. By that time in the proceedings, though, I felt less uplifted than manipulated.
The Martian Child **1/2 (out of four stars)
Directed by Menno Meyjes. With John Cusack, Bobby Coleman, Amanda Peet and Joan Cusack. Distributed by Sony Pictures Classics.
Running time: 1 hour, 32 mins.
Parent's guide: PG (thematic elements and mild language)
Playing at: area theaters
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