Beaver

As a director and actress, former child star Jodie Foster works well with stories about children. She's also been a surprisingly strong counter-balance to aggressive male screen figures, and The Beaver may have seemed an interesting challenge to her.

A toy company chief executive (Mel Gibson), sinking further into depression, is eventually rejected by his wife (Foster) and elder son (Anton Yelchin). After failed suicide attempts, he puts himself into the care of a domineering glove puppet reject (the title role beaver). It takes control of his left arm and his voice, which now proclaims dangerously cute rough love of him in the tones of Michael Caine.

His infant son is enchanted, his wife is won over, but the son remains aloof. So did I. The son's a class genius, completing papers for fellow students for a fee. A top-graded girl (Jennifer Lawrence) needs a speech, and she'll pay up to a thousand dollars for it, believe it or not. I didn't.

She had a brother who ODed, and she casts aside her expensive honeyed phrases to tell her class about everyone simply needing love, which inspires her speech-writing lover to rush and embrace a father who'd cut off his left arm to free himself from the puppet. That's the plot and it's hard to imagine why Foster thought she could fashion such a pig's ear into cinematic silk.

Harvey and Walter Mitty meet Lars and evil blood-thirsty puppet stereotypes (Chucky, Puppet Master, Gremlins and Child's Play franchises) on the way to an Ordinary Family? Writer Kyle Killen, a new hack on the Hollywood block, sold his concept to Foster and her producers. They lost most of their $20-30 million investment; at least Gibson got a chance to show that he's a charismatic middle-aged actor who's willing to look and act his age.