So much average

Exactly the movie you think it is, but not the movie you want it to be.

The acting is good, and the firecracker script has some excellent ideas.

There are moments in this movie where the great movie it could've been peek out... They're fleeting, here, but they're worth savoring, and they happen often enough to make it worth your while.

One of the best movies I have ever watched. Very touching story of a family trying to cope with the unfathomable sorrow from the loss of a child. Only to be made worse by not being able to conceive another child. Incredible performance from the boy "Eli" (Maurice Cole). Also heartfelt performances from Toni Collette and Ioan Gruffodd. Cannot believe the sad, cynical people who reviewed this movie negatively using terms like "creepy" and "spooky". Really!? Too bad they all got bogged down in the trivial details of accents and technical issues while missing the whole story being told before them. That unconditional love shown to people will overcome and heal even the deepest hurt and devastation. A lesson that Christ taught us that I fear is lost on the negative reviewers of this movie who could not see past the casting and unimportant details. A tremendous opportunity lost for theses folks. I vote for more movies like this vs. most of the trash that is turned out.

Drawing inspiration from "It's a Wonderful Life" and urban legends involving giving a ride to the ghost of that girl that was killed after the prom 20 years ago, "Angel in the House" as it is known in the U.S. looks like it may have been a Hallmark TV movie in the UK. Quirky Australian Toni Collette dons a heavy Scottish accent and reaches for warmth and pathos but her past characterizations - particularly in the U.S. television show "United States of Tara" - make the viewer assume her character isn't crazy from grief but rather just plain crazy. She's married to the standard clueless white male character that now populates every non-action movie since "Mr. Mom". Into their disorderly existence walks in a offputtingly polite and well-dressed seven year old who naps a lot and Mr. Potts a homeless drifter who the viewer assumes is secretly a serial killer. While the script follows precisely the trajectory you expect once the basis premise has been established, the desired effect of touching warmth and personal growth never quite comes together. While Collette's awkward characterization of the grief stricken mother is one issue, the weirdness of the visiting foster child and his minder Mr. Pots are perhaps more at fault. The cinematography doesn't help, never has a day at Windsor, England's LEGOLAND looked quite as overcast and as little fun. Also, the father's idea to save his dying toy business is just stupid and fairly cynical. In short, a fairly good film to hate watch but not one to touch your heart.

I love Toni Collette and rented this because of her however I am very surprised she got mixed up with this film. I'm afraid I cannot give a full review as I had to stop watching at the part where the precocious child gets them to sing together in the car. Not only was this scene totally predictable (as was everything up to this point), but it was "hide under the sofa" embarrassing.It stuck me that it had been created in a Hollywood kid-movie cutesy style - lovely clean light, bouncy manipulative music, but it had been 'tuned' to fit the British psyche. However I would have to say that whoever did this does not get the British angle on all this at all.The kid has the mentality of a 50 year old, speaks as no kid on the planet would, and yet elicits the response "isn't he cute' from Toni Collette. In reality you would be running a mile from this spooky child, and so this request for suspension of disbelief was too much for me. The child himself also appeared to be reading every one of his lines, none seemed to come from him - although given their nature this is hardly surprising.Please bear in mind with this review that I do like a lot of schmaltzy sentimental films - so have no problem with this particular genre, but this is one sick bag too much.

I'm not sure how I came to have this film in my collection. I am also not sure that Toni Colette read the script before agreeing to star in this film... or maybe she just needed the cold hard cash. The script is terrible, trying to desperately to be a magical, tear-jerking, feel good movie but failing terribly to even engage. Why didn't casting and the script writers (or even the actors for that matter) communicate on lines? Hearing the lead character (approx 35 years of age) say to an 65+ yr old man "Don't do this to me, we've been friends for years...I was at your wedding" Or from another actor (similar age) playing the part of an employee "I may have been with you for 45 years but I have a family to feed" its not believable and further spoils any magic that may have been possible.Very few surprises, very little actual drama, conflict, twists or turns... 30 minutes of 'Touched By An Angel' would be more fore-filling.