Luckily for the perennially adorable John Cusack, "Martian Child" is more a hit than a miss. Its above-average acting and offbeat sense of humor almost mask the script's clichés, but what really carries the film is its fearless embrace of weirdness in kids and adults.
Cusack plays David, a science-fiction novelist still recovering from the death of his wife. Wanting to fulfill his late wife's wishes, David adopts Dennis (Bobby Coleman), whose issues with abandonment and loneliness have caused him to retreat into his imagination and believe he is from Mars.
"Martian Child" avoids depicting David as a clueless sitcom-type dad or Dennis as a one-dimensional "problem" child. Its surprisingly sensitive treatment of Dennis' issues make him one of the most complex child characters seen in theaters in some time from funny quirks like wearing sunglasses and a weight belt (to combat Earth's low gravity), to more serious problems like stealing.
As Dennis and David grow to understand each other, the camera explores David's ultra-modern house and garden. The strange statues and the topiary of the grounds, filmed in dark grays and greens, lend an appropriately otherworldly air to the picture.
Cusack, though admittedly playing his usual character of the unconventionally quirky hero, imbues the role of David with a likeable personality. He even gets in a few notable lines that are reminiscent of his speeches at the height of his career: "Of course I'm hysterical! Hysterical is the new calm!" Joan Cusack, who aptly plays David's sardonic sister, brings her usual sibling chemistry to the film.
Coleman deftly plays Dennis; resisting the typical child-actor temptation to be too cute, he speaks in a hoarse, awkward whisper. His pale face and floppy brown hair call to mind a younger Lou Taylor Pucci ("Thumbsucker"), and Cat Stevens' "Don't Be Shy" on the sound track calls to mind another movie about an odd kid and a cross-generational friendship, "Harold and Maude."
The film doesn't seem to know whether it wants to be family-friendly - it deals with issues that are too intense for young children and includes bits of sexual innuendo, but its trailer definitely markets the film to a younger audience.
More problematic is the way the final scenes descend into cheesiness in a drawn-out climax full of tears, painful reconciliations and long Cusack speeches. Cranking up in melodrama at the last minute feels wrong when the rest of the film is refreshingly muted and modest.
However, the true value of "Martian Child" is its unabashed claim that it's OK to be strange, whether you're a little bit nerdy, like David's bullied childhood self, or really seriously unusual, like Dennis' alien alter ego. Not only does the film accept this weirdness - it revels in it, pointing out that imagination and intelligence in children are nothing to be ashamed of. It also poses several important questions - such as, "Is it good to be like everyone else?" - without pretending to know the answers.
In this age when every parent just seems to want a "normal, well-adjusted" kid, "Martian Child" understands that there's no such thing. That alone makes it worthwhile to watch.
