Stuart Little | Esme Shirt

STUART LITTLE
Columbia Pictures
Cert. U
Director: Rob Minkoff

A happily-married 1950s couple go to a New York orphanage with the intention of adopting a child, a sibling for their son, George.

For those of us old enough to remember, the couple (played by Geena Davis and Hugh Laurie) look like Mary Tyler-Moore and Dick Van Dyke. They and their son are an idealised cornflake-packet American family. The couple come away from the orphanage not with a child, but with a talking, nattily-dressed white mouse. They adopt him formally into their family. He takes their name and becomes Stuart Little. Now we are watching the fairytale unfold. Can the oddity, the misfit, be accepted? How will he cope with the prejudice and hostility he will meet? Will the love of his new parents be enough?

Based on the book by E.B. White (writer of the more famous Charlotte's Web), Stuart Little takes us on a sentimental journey which involves humour, pathos and adventure. It is a charming and disarming story which underlines the importance of family and the unique value of everybody, however different from others they may appear.

It is now too easy to take for granted a film where humans converse with a well-turned-out mouse sitting in the palm of a hand. The technology is brilliant. This mouse looks like a mouse, and it not only talks, it smiles and brushes its teeth. The various cats, the baddies of the piece, are similarly convincing and have some very funny lines. The wonderful episode where the mouse sails the toy boat will appeal to the child in everyone.

But no less appealing is the warmth of family love exemplified by the Littles, the haven of such a home and hearth. Of course, they are not real, this is a fairy tale, but they strike a chord. Hard-bitten cynics may be tempted to ask for a bucket, but they will not be able to deny the power of such an image. In our fractured society, where the dysfunctional is normal, it would do people no harm to view and wonder at the world we have so gleefully jettisoned. There are a lot of orphans out there in need of love, acceptance and security. The unashamed message of this film is that such things are found in the bosom of a stable, loving, traditional family. Recommended for all ages.