Grow

Posted on October 13, 2025 at 2:59 pm

B +

Lowest Recommended Age:	Kindergarten - 3rd Grade
MPAA Rating:	Rated PG for thematic elements, some suggestive references and brief language
Profanity:	None
Alcohol/ Drugs:	None
Violence/ Scariness:	Some vandalism
Diversity Issues:	None
Date Released to Theaters:	October 17, 2025

Grow is that rare theatrical release that is a genuine treat for the family, filled with charm and lightly dusted with whimsy.

Charlie (Priya-Rose Brookwell) lives in an English orphanage she is determined to leave so she can try to find her mother, who left her behind so she could go to Los Angeles to try to become a movie star. When the head of the orphanage, exhausted by chasing after Charlie, tracks down a relative, she is relieved to be able to hand her off.

That relative is Charlie’s Aunt Dinah Little (Golda Rosheuvel of “Bridgerton” and “Queen Charlotte”), who is struggling to keep the family farm going. She is resolved but grim about taking on another responsibility.

Dinah’s farm is in a (fictional) rural community that is obsessed with pumpkins. The annual pumpkin competition is so essential to the town’s identity that there is a permanent count-down sign showing how many days to the next festival, and a gigantic annual prize of 100,000 pounds.

A snooty titled couple called Lord and Lady Smythe-Gherkin (Tim McInnerny of “Notting Hill” and Jane Horrocks of “Little Voice” and “Chicken Run”) have won every year except once, when their pumpkin was broken, and that year the prize was taken by a local farmer named Arlo (Nick Frost, often seen with Simon Pegg in movies like “Paul,” “Shawn of the Dead,” and “Hot Fuzz”).

Charlie has a gift for communicating with plants. When Dinah discovers that Charlie can “hear” what plants need to thrive, she realizes that they have a chance to beat the Smythe-Gherkins. She also begins to think that going organic might be a way to save the farm.

Someone else is determined to win the competition, a scientist named Mr. Gregory (Jeremy Swift of “Ted Lasso”), who will lose his job if he cannot prove that his system is superior. Gregory also has a son who becomes Charlie’s friend.

Director John McPhail loves to transcend genres, and this film weaves seamlessly between elements of comedy, fantasy, family drama, and even a touch of (light) horror. The winning performances lend warmth throughout that is endearing, especially the evolving relationship between Dinah and Charlie, from duty to partnership, to family. This is a touching, funny, smart, heartfelt film that should be a family favorite.

Parents should know that this film includes parental abandonment and neglect, brief schoolyard language, and some potty humor.

Family discussion: Have you ever tried to plant something? How did Dinah change and why?

If you like this, try; “Hoot” and “Dolphin Tale”

Gabby’s Dollhouse: The Movie

Posted on September 25, 2025 at 5:45 pm

Lowest Recommended Age:	Preschool
MPAA Rating:	Rated G
Profanity:	None
Alcohol/ Drugs:	None
Violence/ Scariness:	Mild peril, mild meanness
Diversity Issues:	Diverse characters
Date Released to Theaters:	September 26, 2025

“Gabby’s Dollhouse” is a sweet television series for young children about a girl who can shrink (and turn into an animated character) to play with cat-ish friends in a magical dollhouse. Gabby (Laila Lockhart Kraner). The show, from Traci Paige Johnson and Jennifer Twomey of “Blue’s Clues,” shares that series’ interactive style, with Gabby asking the audience to help her sing and dance. The cupcake aesthetic, silly cat-puns, varied but cute dollhouse characters, and cheerful tone have made it a favorite for preschoolers.

Gabby is an appealing, aspirational heroine. She is enthusiastic and imaginative and she tells us “every moment is a chance to create magic.” She invites us into a gentle world of candy colors, sparkles, balloons, marshmallows, hugs, and magic. But it does not always scale up to a feature film, especially for those young enough to be the show’s biggest fans who might not be interested in the longer, slightly more complex storyline.

It begins with the origin story of the dollhouse. Gabby’s grandmother, Gigi (singer Gloria Estefan) made it for Gabby when she was a little girl. In present day, Gabby is older, but still loves pinching the cat ears on her headband and squeezing the paw of her stuffed toy Pandy to enter the dollhouse. She’s especially excited as the movie begins because Gigi is coming to pick her up for a visit to “Catfrancisco.” Of course that means hauling the dollhouse behind the van; Gabby would never leave her friends behind.

Gigi is so excited to show Gabby her crafting room (which is wonderfully equipped and could inspire a show of its own) and give her something to eat that they leave the dollhouse strapped to the van outside. This is a mistake. One of the dollhouse denizens is so eager to get going he releases the trailer hitch and Catfransisco is just as hilly as San Francisco (it also has a very big bridge) and off the dollhouse goes on a wild ride. It ends up in the hands of the evil (mildly evil — this is a G-rated film) Vera (Kristen Wiig, looking gorgeous and having a blast).

Gabby and Gigi go after the dollhouse. Vera, who has forgotten how to play and sees objects only as collectibles has moved the little characters from the dollhouse to display them, one in an aquarium and one in the garden, plus one in her purse. Rescuing them, with the help and sometimes hindrance of Vera’s abandoned toy (voiced by Jason Mantzoukas), takes up the rest of the film.’

There’s enough tension to keep it interesting, though the theme of an adult re-learning the importance of play may not grab young audiences. More interesting but getting almost no screen time was Gabby’s original hesitation when Gigi encouraged her to create her own project, and then, after the rescue gave her confidence and encouraged her creativity, she was willing to try. At the screening I attended, the children in the audience started to get squirmy when the film ran past the brief run time of the segments of the series, and a few of them were anxious about Vera’s low-wattage villainy. The likely audience for the film might be happier just watching the series.

Parents should know that this film has some mild potty humor and mild peril and stress.

Family discussion: Who is your favorite Gabby Cat and why? Why didn’t Vera want to play anymore? If you got tiny, where would you go?

If you like this, try; The series on Netflix

A Big Bold Beautiful Journey

Posted on September 16, 2025 at 3:35 pm

B +

Lowest Recommended Age:	High School
MPAA Rating:	Rated R for language
Profanity:	F word used many times
Alcohol/ Drugs:	Alcohol
Violence/ Scariness:	Sad off-screen death of a parent, medical issue for an infant
Diversity Issues:	None
Date Released to Theaters:	September 19, 2025

Two strangers meet at a wedding, and the next day find themselves — in both senses of the term — on a car trip, guided by a mysterious GPS, through apparently endless unoccupied rural landscapes, stopping at doors that appear unconnected to any structure but turn out to be portals to the past. The journey, with a script by “The Menu’s” Seth Reiss and directed by Kogonada is romantic in the dictionary meaning of the term, “characterized by themes of love, emotion, imagination, and nature.”

Margot Robbie plays Sarah, and Colin Farrell, who starred in Kogonada’s “After Yang,” plays David. They both arrive at the wedding unaccompanied. And, as we will learn, they both arrive in vehicles provided by a very quirky firm simply called The Car Rental Agency, “specializing in emergencies.” The agency, which operates in a gigantic warehouse with just two cars, 1990s Saturns. Its two proprietors (Kevin Kline and Phoebe Waller-Bridge) sit behind a table and, when David shows up having found his car with a boot for unpaid tickets, a flier for the rental company conveniently nearby, they have a file on him. He initially turns down their GPS, insisting that he can just use his phone. But they warn him that phones can fail, and it is clear they won’t let him go without the GPS, so he takes it.

The GPS works normally on the way to the wedding, where David and Sarah meet, drawn to one another but hesitant. It seems like a missed connection. The next morning, the GPS (voiced by Jodie Turner-Smith, Farrell’s co-star in “After Yang”) invites David on an adventure and then directs him to get a “fast food cheeseburger.” Sarah is there, also eating a cheeseburger. As they leave, her car won’t start and the GPS tells him to give her a ride. The big, bold, beautiful journey begins.

The first doorway is mostly to get them used to the idea, and then each successive doorway takes them to more complicated and painful memories. Two of particular impact show us separate past encounters that intersect in meaningful ways. Others allow David and Sarah to understand their parents (sensitive performances by real-life couple Lily Rabe as Sarah’s mother and Hamish Linklater as David’s father). They get to glimpse how their time at the wedding could have been different. The one audience may respond to the most viscerally, because it’s high school, takes David back to his performance at age 15 in the lead role of “How to Succeed in Business Without Really Trying.” The details of these encounters are wisely chosen and performed with the delicacy and authenticity of Kogonada’s previous films. The affection for theater kids (notice the posters in Sarah’s high school bedroom and the song David sings in the car) underscores the importance of finding the truth in stories.

Cinematographer Benjamin Loeb (also of “After Yang”) brings a poetic sensibility to the images, enhancing the fantasy element of the story but grounding it (literally) in the landscape. The shape and bright primary colors of the umbrellas are striking, and overhead shots evoke a heroic adventure. The story’s encouragement for those who have the courage to take a risk and change old patterns has a quiet optimism that may send some of us to open a few bold and beautiful doors ourselves.

Parents should know that this movie includes many uses of the f-word, some sexual references, and a brief, non-explicit sexual situation, a sad death of a parent, and a medical issue involving an infant.

Family discussion: How are Sarah and David alike? How are they different? How did what they learn about themselves change the way they thought about each other? What moment in your life would you want to go back to in order to learn from it?

If you like this, try: “9 Days” and “All of Us Strangers”

Ne Zha II

Posted on August 21, 2025 at 5:26 pm

Lowest Recommended Age:	4th - 6th Grade
MPAA Rating:	Not rated
Profanity:	Some schoolyard language
Alcohol/ Drugs:	Characters take magic pills
Violence/ Scariness:	Extended peril and violence, sad deaths of parents and brother, images of a destroyed village with charred remains, scary monsters
Diversity Issues:	None
Date Released to Theaters:	August 15, 2025

I’m not going to spend much time on the storyline of “Ne Zha !!” because it is extremely convoluted and because it is not really that important. “Ne Zha II” is a sequel, continuing the saga based on the Investiture of the Gods book written during the Ming Dynasty (1368-1644), itself based on folklore, myth, and real-life historical characters. The first film is now on Netflix. I’m not sure it will clear things up for you, though, unless you already have some familiarity with the underlying stories told over generations. I overheard some older Chinese-Americans in the audience laughing as they admitted they remembered hearing the stories as children but had a hard time muddling through the first film.

That doesn’t matter too much, as long as you can figure out who the good guys are and why they are fighting the bad guys, because you will be spending most of the time looking at what’s best in this film, the spectacular and stunning background and secondary character visuals, especially the monsters. The design of the main characters is not close to that level, the voice talent other than Oscar-winner Michelle Yeoh, is lackluster, and the convoluted storyline becomes more distraction than narrative.

The two characters at the heart of the story are the impish child demon Nezha (Yanting Lü) and the more mature Ao Bing (Mo Han). They were created together as a Chaos Pearl, birthed from the primordial essences of heaven and earth. In the first movie, they joined forces and their bodies were dissolved. As this one begins, Nezha’s teacher, the immortal Taoist deity Taiyi Zhenren (Jiaming Zhang), portrayed here as a foolish but devoted character, is creating new bodies for them from the petals of the sacred lotus, a difficult process that almost immediately goes wrong when Ao Bing’s still very fragile body is destroyed. Because it takes a while to re-create the lotus petal material for bodies, Ao Bing’s soul will dissolve unless he can find a temporary host, so Taiyi puts him inside Nezha’s body.

This leads to some complications as Taiyi takes the combined boys to get the potion needed to give Ao Bing a new body. The boy(s) will have to pass a series of tests to be given the potion by Wuliang (Deshun Wang), Taiyi’s brother. Brother and father-son relationships are very important in this story.

Taiyi gives Nezha pills to put him to sleep and let Ao Bing’s powers take over to pass the tests. Meanwhile, various conflicts and reunions happen with many other characters. And many, many fight scenes, one with a funny exchange involving characters disguising themselves as each other and — an issue everyone can relate to — the inability to remember a password.

NOTE: Stay for the credits for an extended extra scene that is one of the film’s best moments.

Parents should know that this film includes extended fantasy-style peril, action, and violence, with monsters. Characters are injured and some are killed, including beloved parents and a beloved young brother and family members who sacrifice themselves and an entire village burned down, with dead bodies turned to ashes. There are a few schoolyard-style bad words and some graphic potty humor and gross-out moments. Characters take pills to manipulate their powers.

Family discussion: Nezha is given an impossible choice. What should he have done? Were you surprised at who the villain turned out to be?

If you like this, try: the first film

Freakier Friday

Posted on August 5, 2025 at 7:17 pm

B +

Lowest Recommended Age:	4th - 6th Grade
MPAA Rating:	Rated PG for thematic elements, rude humor, language and some suggestive references
Profanity:	Some mild language
Alcohol/ Drugs:	None
Violence/ Scariness:	Comic peril, no one hurt
Diversity Issues:	None
Date Released to Theaters:	August 8, 2025

Lindsay Lohan and Jamie Lee Curtis are back for another big body switch in “Freakier Friday,” the sequel to their 2003 film, based on the 1973 book by Mary Rodgers that has inspired not only several films but many imitations and variations. It’s an irresistible premise, taking two characters at a moment of maximum frustration in their relationship and making them literally walk in each other’s shoes to achieve greater connection and understanding. It also provides many opportunities for wild comedy along the way.

Anna (Lohan), a rebellious young teenager in the original film, is an adult now, the single mother of an equally rebellious teenage daughter named Harper (Julia Butters of “Once Upon a Time in Hollywood”). Harper is at the “please drive away like you don’t know me” stage. And Anna, like all of us, no matter how hard we try not to, is channeling her mother, calling after Harper hopefully as she goes to school, “Make good choices!” (A line Curtis improvised in the first film.)

Anna’s mother, Tess (Curtis), still a therapist and still happily married to Ryan (Mark Harmon), provides a lot of support. Just to let us know how up to date they are, Tess has a podcast and a new book coming out, Rebellion With Respect. She plays pickleball. And she’s still talking about reframing.

When Harper and a new classmate from London create a mess in science class, Anna and the classmate’s father meet in the principal’s office, and there’s an immediate spark. Eric (“The Good Place’s” Manny Jacinto) is a chef, and his daughter, Lily (Sophia Hammons) is very unhappy about the move. In a quick but cute montage Eric and Anna fall in love and get engaged. As their parents get closer, the animosity between surfer girl Harper and aspiring fashion designer Lily gets frostier, especially because it means Lily will be stuck in California.

At Anna’s bachelorette party on a Thursday night, a wacky fortune teller slash every other possible job played by “Saturday Night Live’s” Vanessa Bayer reads the palms of our four leads, and the next morning…is Friday. A freakier one. Twice as freaky, in fact. The Anna and Tess now find themselves in the bodies of Harper and Lily.

So Anna-now-Harper and Tess-now-Lily find themselves in high school, where they plot to stop the wedding and very much enjoy the young bodies, so good at bending without any aches or pains and with “metabolisms at the speed of light” to enable them to enjoy so much junk food. They also have to suffer through detention presided over by none other than Mr. Bates (Stephen Tobolowsky re-creating his character from the earlier film). Also returning: the other members of Anna’s old rock group, Pink Slip. Christina Vidal (Maddie), and Haley Hudson (Peg) and Chad Michael Murray as Anna’s high school crush, Jake. Rosalind Chao, Pei-Pei in the earlier film, appears as Mama P. There are references to Lohan’s other most memorable roles, including Elaine Hendrix from “The Parent Trap” as Anna’s assistant. And there’s a joke at the end about Jake’s interest in Tess from the first film.

Harper-now-Anna and Lily-now-Tess go out into the adult world where they enjoy the freedom of driving a car and wearing some wild outfits. Harper-now-Anna has to comfort Anna’s client, a pop star named Ella (an engaging Maitreyi Ramakrishnan), who has just been dumped by her boyfriend as she is about to introduce her new album. And Lily-now-Tess has to puzzle her way through the Senior aisle in the drug store.

Whew. The four-way switch and lots of new characters and complications — I haven’t even gotten to Eric’s family and Santina Muha as an immigration official) — clutter up the storyline. But it is still great fun to see Lohan and Curtis throw themselves (sometimes literally) into the younger characters. Their chemistry is still sky high and they are clearly having a blast. The surrounding chaos (a food fight! makeovers! a crazy car ride!) is very entertaining.

Curtis and Lohan are also producers and they know what the fans and newcomers to the story want, including a Pink Slip reunion so rousing that it might make us look forward to a Freakiest Friday some day.

NOTE: Stay for the credits to enjoy some behind-the-scenes clips.

Parents should know that this movie includes some mild language, references to bodily functions, and some family issues, including teenagers unhappy about their parents’ marriage.

Family discussion: If you switched with your parent or child, what do you think you would learn? What’s the best thing about getting older? What’s the best thing about being younger?

If you like this, try: The original Freaky Friday book and the many movie versions and variations, including “17 Again,” the other “17 Again,” “Family Switch,” and “Vice Versa“