Joanna McGrath

I took my niece (8) and nephew (9) to see this and they both separately asked how long was left after about half an hour. I had high hopes for a fuzzy cute family film having seen the actors promoting it on various talk shows, but this isn’t for kids IMO and I’m sorry to say I didn’t enjoy it either. It starts off showing 12 year old Bea’s mum has died of cancer and her dad (John K) is in hospital. If I’d known this information alone, I wouldn’t have taken the kids to see it. Bea goes to stay with her grandma who acts like she’s never seen a child before. The relationship is weird and awkward and she doesn’t seem to mind when Bea goes wandering the streets of New York at night coming back with the explanation she was ‘out with friends’. The Ryan Reynolds character comes across as angry and creepy which is confusing for Bea and at times she seems frightened - this on top of her parent situation was too much. Overuse of ‘God’ and ‘Oh my God’ throughout which felt unnecessary - and something the kids aren’t allowed to say. There were other points as well, but I won’t go on! It’s such a shame as we were looking forward to seeing it and the cinema isn’t cheap these days!