Alexander and the Terrible, Horrible, No Good, Very Bad Day: short on drama but lots of fun – first look review

The movies would have you believe that middle-school kids are either brutish oafs or tender snowflakes, eternally on the receiving end of wedgies, noogies and taunts.

This, if my own personal memory serves, is not exactly the case. One day you’re up, telling jokes in class like a champion, the next day you’re down, accidentally kicking the ball in your own goal and losing the clutch game.

Alexander and the Terrible, Horrible, No Good, Very Bad Day (hereafter referred to as AATTHNGVBD) presents this pre-teen ambiguity in a way seldom seen at the cinema. Most kids will identify with Alexander – his travails seem insurmountable, but the truth is that he’s experiencing a boyhood he’ll remember fondly.

Its vibe is reminiscent of shows like The Adventures of Pete & Pete and Malcolm in the Middle, and while that may not make for searing drama, it does make for a good deal of fun.

AATTHNGVBD’s nearly 12-year-old hero may be prone to faceplants when he wants to look cool in front of cheery heartthrob Becky (always named Becky), but he is not a shy lad shunned by all his peers. He’s a good-natured goof who will crack “Boron? Bor-ing!” during chemistry lab and still soldier on when met with crickets. It’s only when he realizes the entire school is ditching his birthday party for a classmate’s that he starts to get stressed out. (Alexander realizes he can’t compete – his rival has ADHD and a hot tub.)

Add to this that Alexander is the middle kid. The older brother’s readying for prom, the older sister for her lead performance in Peter Pan and the baby is the baby. Mom (Jennifer Garner) is the breadwinner now that dad (Steve Carell)‘s aerospace job was downsized, but the swap of traditional gender roles goes out of its way not to be a source of comedy.

Mom’s a whiz as a junior creative at a publishing company and dad can handle the Mommy & Me yoga while he sends out resumes. The point is that the rest of the family seems to have a handle on things, even though modern life (and all of its iPhone product placement) is extremely busy. When Alexander feels down in the dumps he makes a birthday wish: maybe the rest of his family could know what it’s like to have a terrible, horrible, no good, very bad day.

That tiny bit of magical realism sets the wheels (of the soon to be crashed family van) in motion. Bro gets a giant zit, sis gets stuffed sinuses and the baby’s pacifier gets mangled in the garbage disposal. Mom’s big celebrity reading collapses when a typo forces Dick Van Dyke (!) to say lewd things on stage and dad’s interview with a video game developer falls apart in a ridiculous set piece that plays to Carell’s broad comedy strengths. The avalanche of shenanigans gets increasingly zany, but not too unwieldy. Much of this is due to extremely likeable performances from all involved, especially young Ed Oxenbould in the lead role.

Oxenbould, a newcomer in Hollywood feature films, hails from a family of comic actors well known in their native Australia. There’s some irony in this, in that one of Alexander’s quirks is his never explained fascination with all things Down Under. (This wasn’t written in to this adaptation – it’s in the source material, Judith Viorst’s kid lit book from 1972.)

When Oxenbould isn’t chomping on Vegemite or rambling about wombats, he’s huffing and sighing and flailing his arms around, looking like a beleaguered junior executive that’s somehow trapped in a 12-year-old’s body. Add the slight lisp (if an affectation, it’s pure gold) and by the end of this madcap picture everything the kid does or says is a little bit hilarious. I’ll need more evidence before I can declare this young man our next great comic wunderkind, but by the end I was beaming like a proud uncle.

Alas, my huzzahs don’t extend to everything in the picture.

When Alexander confesses his unkind wish to the rest of the family all of the storytelling air is let out of the balloon. Yet there’s still an entire third act to go. The intention, I’m sure, is to prove that the Cooper family can defeat any Very Bad Day. Indeed, when the chips are really down the clan rallies together, sings a goofy song and delivers a solid lesson about togetherness or understanding or some other corny value.

I don’t know exactly what it was. I mean, what 12-year-old isn’t going to roll their eyes at the wussy parts? Luckily, director Miguel Arteta, whose roots come from indies like Star Maps and Chuck & Buck, maintains the trace elements of subversiveness necessary to make this flick appealing to its target audience.

This is still a Disney film, but it’s as if the wholesomeness of 70s titles like The Love Bug or Escape To Witch Mountain have been put through a strainer of Little Miss Sunshine quirk. For heaven’s sake, one music cue is set to The Feelies! For family entertainment, you could do a lot worse.