Un cadeau inattendu

I found this on Sky and despite the title which is irrelevant and does nothing to draw any attention to the film, I looked up the title on here and decided to give it a go, despite mixed reviews. I watched it with my teenage son and we both loved it. It was funny and poignant and a little bit of a mystery ;) I liked all the characters, especially Eli! What a delightful little oddity he is. Sure it is reminiscent of other movies such as "It's a wonderful life" and it is somewhat predictable, but that didn't detract from it at all for me. It made me cry but on the whole it's a tender experience that leaves you with a very warm glow along with the end credits. It should be re-titled as simply "Eli" Whoever called it "Foster" was having a very bad day! It's not going to be everyone's taste but sensitive souls like myself will no doubt appreciate where it is coming from.

See, I think of my self as a tough guy who only watches horror movies. However I loved every part of this film, it will be one of those unforgettable movies. Also I am used to getting bored in the middle of the movie but this one kept grabbing my attention. The movie is about a family who is not able to have a child and their life marriage was beginning to fall apart. Acting was awesome, the plot was awesome and so was every part of this film, at the end it made my eyes tear. I don't really wanna say anything else about the movie so you can enjoy every part of it and be surprised with the events that happen in it. Maybe I am not very familiar wit this genre of movies but I think that the ideas were original and that was what made me like it. Maybe the idea of the box wasn't that brilliant but it was original and very realistic. Oh yea, speaking of realistic, the movie does not seem to be 100% real but it makes you think that it is.

I should mention that even though the movie had a title related to Christmas when I saw it, it's not really about Christmas. The holiday does come near the end, though. And Zooey and Alec learn a lot from Eli.

Maurice Cole is outstanding. There is no way he is seven years old. He comes across as a short adult and shows a lot of intelligence and appeal.

Toni Collette is quite appealing, and when she does smile, it's a very nice smile. But she doesn't smile a lot.

The other lead actors do quite well also. In fact, everyone does. Even the employee at Legoland Amusement Park who is only there for the paycheck and cares nothing about his job.

It's a very worthwhile effort.

Zooey (Toni Collette) is having trouble getting pregnant. Her husband Alec (Ioan Gruffudd) is having trouble with his toy business. They decide to adopted a child. He's a strange little boy. Along with a strange homeless guy (Richard E. Grant), they start to dig up their past tragedy and recover their lives together.

There isn't enough magic in this movie. That is the biggest missing ingredient. This is relying a lot on the kid. The directing style isn't helping him any. The level of production is some kind of TV movie.

Then there is the unrealism of the toy business. The big orders ending seems more like a high school play. It's a nice sweet story, but there's just nothing great in it.

In this day and age it is becoming increasingly difficult to find movies that I can show to my 99-year-old mother. If there is the least bit of profanity or gratuitous violence, she just won't watch any more! So it was wonderful to see "Foster" and I look forward to inviting Ma to come and see it.

What an amazing little actor is Maurice Cole! Unfortunately, there is almost nothing about him on IMDb - not even his birthdate and so I am still wondering if, as the plot says, he was actually just seven years old when Foster was shot. If he was, then he is amazing! His clear and accurate pronunciation of some quite long and technical words would, I should imagine, put him into the child prodigy category. The only reason we won't see a lot more of him is if his parents decide that that don't want him to fall into the many traps that seem to await child stars.

The story is lovely - just nice people doing nice things and attempting to cope with life's challenges and setbacks. The only reservation that I had about the whole movie was the selection of Toni Collette as Zooey. I would love to have seen Sandra Bullock in that role! And why did an Aussie actress have a sort of Scottish accent? Her mother didn't and the film wasn't set in Scotland (as far as I could tell), her husband had his own natural very slight Welsh accent so that was, to me, a distraction because, rather than give the story my whole attention, I found myself wondering about that.

Nevertheless, a delightful film that will please Ma and my grandchildren equally.