Real Life Sci-Fi

As a kid-lover and responsible parent, I'm a sucker for sappy movies about good people influencing the lives of children needing love. We watched Martian Child (2007, rate PG) on DVD this weekend. I rented it because both John and Joan Cusack star in it and both generally save their talents for independent, sometimes quirky, films. This was one of them.

I have to say that the child actor, Bobby Coleman, stole this film as the child who insists he is a Martian who has been left on Earth by his parents and is awaiting their return. The viewer is not sure if this is a sci-fi movie or not until the end and that makes the film even more endearing.

There are lessons taught in the movie that unfortunately will most likely not fall upon the ears of those parents who need to be taught. For the rest of us, it gives us hope that every child can be saved and loved.

The movie was based upon a novella based on real life incidents of the writer David Gerrold. Gerrold is a single adoptive father, who happens to be homosexual, although that is not mentioned in the film. The novella won several awards. For those of you Star Trek fans, Gerrold wrote the famous episode, "The Trouble with Tribbles."