More attention should be paid to the words spoken by children. Now, they may be understandable to other children, and possibly their parents, but what about the rest of us? I'm English, my wife American and neither could make out what the young star was saying for the most part, same thing for his sister too. The story was good. It's just a shame that this important aspect of the film was ignored, or worse, not even considered a problem.

Directed by Jean-Pierre Jeunet who also helmed the famed, Amelie— it's no doubt that The Young and Prodigious TS Spivet shares some of the director's signatures, particularly when it comes to the visuals. Adapted from a 2010 book, the film brings the best selling work to the screen beautifully. Telling the tale of 10-year-old TS, who lives with his cowboy father, scientist mother, Miss America-wannabe older sister and twin brother in a remote ranch in Montana. Despite his young age, TS has a passion for science especially cartography (the study of maps). Upon receiving a call from the prestigious Smithsonian Institution that his perpetual motion invention has won a prize and is asked to give a speech. Determined, TS sets for New York. By himself. This classic children's film takes one on a trip down memory lane and looks at what it means to be family. TS's family is an odd case and every one has a fair share of weirdness and dysfunctionality that hinders their relationship from growing. Is family simply parents and their children living under one roof? Or is it more? Its vibrant aesthetics and use of warm colors that resemble a retro setting stay true to the film's timeline that is surely a treat. What's more, TS's adventure on discovering himself and his family is the central core of the film suited well with TS' own narration. While the film's tone is not melodramatic but pulls of its serious tone in a light manner, it certainly hits home—what it means to be alone, to be different and to be a family.

If the point of any narrative work of art is to make me sympathize with the human problems of a character, this movie is a failure . The story is of a child who killed his brother accidentally, and there is plenty to sympathize with there, it may seem. A family torn apart, a tragedy that goes unnamed, the guilt and loneliness, etc. But this tragedy is here played almost for laughs with a bizarre fabulist kind of treatment, and so I never believe in any of it, and I'm left not giving a crap that some kid has died, because I can't believe that the kid is real. Nor is anything real. I leave thinking either I'm a terrible person for not caring that a kid has died... Or I choose a more comfortable feeling and that is to think that the director /writer /everyone involved in this is a soulless or cruel idiot. Yes, it is only a movie, but books and movies are supposed to make me believe for their duration and to illuminate the human experience. This does none of that. It felt like an insult to me and a masturbatory exercise by the filmmaker, whose work I will avoid henceforth.