John Cusack has been in a brooding mood this year playing two widowed fathers, in Grace Is Gone and in Martian Child. As science-fiction writer David, John Cusack runs through gamut of a feel good family movie protagonist, expressing grief, outrage, neurosis, anger, regret, quirk and of course, cloyingly cutesy. Cusack is generally attracted to grieving roles these days--it must be his opposition to the Bush administration, which he called "depressing, corrupt, unlawful, and tragically absurd." (Look for some subliminal Bush-bashing throughout the movie) Yet whenever Cusack desires, he is capable of contributing an excellent performance to a motion picture.

In Cusack tries hard--in fact, that's the whole point of his character, is that David is the overcompensating would-be adoptive father of an eccentric six-year-old boy named Dennis. Dennis is the Martian Child, as he is convinced that he is an alien from Mars posing as a human child. This doesn't sit well with anyone, from teachers to students, to the adoption agency who predictably decides to review David and Dennis' case. (Look for plenty of heartless agency scowls from actor Richard Schiff) Everybody learns a valuable lesson by the end of the picture, about doing your best to fit into society...and then about remaining true to yourself even in the face of peer pressure. (Which is sort of a mixed message guys?)

Director Menno Meyjes fills the supporting cast with plenty of positive energy, including Joan Cusack starring as (fittingly) David's high-strung sister Liz, and the beautiful Amanda Peet as Harlee, who shares some very charming scenes with Cusack. Amanda Peet's starry eyes flutter around in a performance that's effectively clueless, a friend of the deceased who doesn't quite know how to reconcile her attraction to David. Naturally, the movie avoids this conflict and concentrates on the more trite elements of the story.

Martian Child was based a novelette by David Gerrold, an autobiographical piece. The film adaptation would also be autobiographical if director Meyjex didn't sidestep every relevant point of the story. In the novelette, David is a homosexual single parent while Dennis doesn't literally believe he is from Mars, but plays a game with his adoptive father in order to relate to him. These are the moments that could have truly made Martian Child powerful, perhaps even socially relevant beyond a cutesy family flick.

However, Martian Child strives to "fit in" and simulate predictable human cinema more than it attempts to stay true to its source material and accept Mars in all its flawed glory. There are some very good moments in Martian Child, most of them scenes of Cusack interacting with Amanda Peet. Another endearing scene sees David weep over the death of an animal in front of his adoptive son, who then learns something about "human" grief. Of course, the climax of the movie eventually takes the grief into overblown melodrama. But by that time the story has already lost much momentum and believability.

Martian Child struggles with very basic premises of humanity. Director Meyjes spends two hours reinforcing notions that single parents can still raise children and that strange little boys still deserve love. To tax the filmmakers into saying anything deeper may been have been asking too much from these docile minds. What do you say, if your pint-sized audience wants Lucky Charms instead of a balanced breakfast then you give them Lucky Charms. But the writer may have underestimated the audience in this case--hopefully our hearts can reach out to the stars, well beyond Mars. Grade: C+