At first, I wanted to say that this movie will “Grow” on you. Or that it’s one of those movies whose audience will “Grow” with word of mouth.
Now that the wordplay is out of my system, I’ll be succinct: Go see “Grow.”
There is always a whiff of melancholy in all comedies. And that starts immediately with Charlie (Priya-Rose Brookwell,) a girl who is growing up in the foster-care system and longs to find her birth mother. She is eventually sent to live with her aunt, a tough farmer named Dinah (Golda Rosheuvel,) who manages a failing farm, which has just about every kind of produce except pumpkins.
She has her reasons for not growing pumpkins – you’ll see – in an area besotted with them. The highlight of the year in the village is the pumpkin festival, where whoever raises the pumpkin that weighs the most gets a bunch of money and bragging rights.
Charlie, still determined to find her mother, hears about the contest and becomes determined to win it. Then, she reasons, she can track down her mother and they can live together happily ever after.
Charlie does not know that she possesses a kind of super-power: She can communicate with plants, who respond to her by growing. She also doesn’t know that more than one person with an evil motive is working behind the scenes to ensure Charlie’s pumpkin doesn’t stand a chance.
The themes about friendship and how families can be formed are lovely. The dialogue is clever and the ensemble is wonderful. Buoyant songs such as Rusted Root’s “Send Me On My Way” provide a bouncy background for the tale. Kids will love the characters and the gorgeous colors. Adults will appreciate nods to other movies – there are nods to horror films and a hilarious send-up of an iconic moment from “The Godfather.”
This is one of those unexpected pleasures that deserves to be seen now on the big screen and for years to come on streaming platforms.
3 1/2 stars
Running time: One hour and 47 minutes.
Rated: PG for coarse humor.
At Cinemark, Davenport.
Watch the trailer here.