Foster   Starring: Toni Collette, Ioan Gruffudd, Maurice Cole, Hayley Mills and Richard E. Grant High Fliers Films RRP: £12.99 HFR0186 Certificate: PG Available 05 November 2012

Try as they might to keep up the pretence of a perfect marriage, Zooey and Alec's lives have taken a rocky path since the ‘accident’. Zooey harbours a deep hurt over the loss of their first child and Alec’s toy company is slowly sliding into bankruptcy. Wishing to move their lives forward, the couple decide to visit an adoption agency to see if they would make suitable foster parents. Although little comes of this first meeting, the next day Eli turns up at the door telling them that he has been sent by the children’s home...

Foster (2011 - 1 hr, 30 min, 29 sec) is a bitter sweet comedy from writer/director Jonathan Newman; the film should not be confused with his award winning 2005 short, of the same name, although they both share the idea of a weird kid at its centre.

It is a difficult balance, making a film which covers love, loss and the divine, especially when you are relying on a young novice actor to be able to portray a character who is normal enough for the family to accept, yet weird enough for the audience to understand that something else is going on, yet the film steers a confident path between sentimentality and believability.

Eli is played by Maurice Cole, although this was his first screen acting credit, he would turn up as the young boy in the Doctor Who story The Doctor, the Widow and the Wardrobe (2011). His character wears a hat, discusses politics and art and is full of good advice for Zooey and Alec. Old beyond his years, he is also friends with an over friendly tramp, Mr Potts (Richard E. Grant, another actor who has played Doctor Who) who tends the flowers and watches the fairies do likewise in the evening. We quickly realise that there is a connection between the two as they discuss their progress with Zooey and Alec.

Alec is played by Ioan Gruffudd, who as well as his television and voice over work, appeared as Mr Fantastic in the two Fantastic Four movies (2005, 2007). He plays Alec as a man deeply in love with his wife, but struggling to make her happy and rescue the toy factory which he inherited from his father. Being a gentle comedy, his character and his predicament are deeply sympathetic and he plays his role with the right amount of incredulity regarding Eli’s odd behaviour to sell the role.

As both the emotional heart of the film, both for its pathos of losing a child and the building of a hopeful future, Toni Collette drags you along with her character's innate decency, so you don’t even question when Mr Potts, the tramp, ends up as an impromptu Christmas dinner guest. Probably better known for her roles in The Sixth Sense (1999) and Little Miss Sunshine (2006) she creates a believable connection both with Ioan Gruffudd and Maurice Cole, which helps sell the central absurdity of Eli’s behaviour.

I won’t go any further into the plot as this would spoil the ending, suffice it to say that I was pleasantly surprised to discover that Eli and Mr Potts were not who I thought they were, which ends the film on a pleasant eye opener.

The disc provided was a screener and not the finished product, so I have no idea if the DVD will contain any extras, or even the final quality of the print. The disc provided had a clean print with no evidence of any damage and a clear stereo audio track.

It would be safe to say that this is a heart-warming little tale, the sort that is trotted out at Christmas, watched and enjoyed by the whole family; it is a tale on the boarders of fantasy and reality.

7

Charles Packer