GROW

Here's the short version: this is a charming, well-made family comedy with a genuinely strong moral center, wrapped around a couple of scenes parents of young children should know about ahead of time.

GROW earns its fun. The sets and costumes lean into whimsy, the cast draws you into the story, and underneath the pumpkin-growing plot is a story about family bonds, hard work, keeping your word, and repentance — themes worth cheering for. It even carries a quiet pro-adoption message.

The catch is a handful of moments that spoof horror and gangster movies — think PSYCHO and THE GODFATHER, played for laughs but staged with enough menace that a younger child could be genuinely scared. Add light magical thinking, a Halloween scene with witches, and one lewd double entendre, and you have a movie that's fine for most families but worth previewing if your kids are little or easily spooked.

Bottom line: worth the trip, with a caution for younger children.

Charlie Little has been abandoned by her mother, who left for Hollywood chasing stardom. Sent to live with her long-lost Aunt Dinah — a gruff farmer running the family homestead in the self-proclaimed "Pumpkin Capital of the World" — Charlie discovers she has a strange gift: she can feel what plants feel, and talk to them.

When the town's annual pumpkin-growing contest comes around, Charlie decides to grow one of her own. As her bond with Dinah deepens, so does her pumpkin — but not everyone in town wants her to win.

Three stars means this is a solid, well-crafted family film that does what it sets out to do without quite becoming a classic. The sets and costumes give the story its whimsical texture, and the performances are strong enough to pull viewers into what could have been a thin premise — a girl, a farm, and a very large pumpkin.

The film's comic instincts show most clearly in its movie spoofs, which are clever but risk misjudging their audience; what plays as a wink to adults may land as a real scare for a six-year-old. Aside from that tonal wobble, GROW is confident, good-natured filmmaking that knows exactly what kind of movie it wants to be.

GROW's heart is in the right place. It exalts family bonds formed by choice rather than blood, hard work and perseverance rewarded, and the importance of keeping your word and taking responsibility for the people you love. A saboteur who rigs the contest through bribery, blackmail, and sabotage eventually sees the error of his ways and repents — a real turn, not just a plot convenience. Charlie's own story carries a quiet pro-adoption message, and even her absent mother returns to apologize rather than staying unaccountable.

The film does dilute this with some pagan texture: Charlie's gift is a form of magical thinking — she communicates with plants and feels what they feel — and a Halloween sequence adds light occult trappings, children in witch costumes, and skeleton decorations. There's also a mild environmentalist thread running through the town's conversations about saving the planet and organic farming. None of this overwhelms the story's moral center, but it's there, and discerning families should know it going in.

At its core, GROW tells the story of an abandoned child finding a home and a family she didn't expect. Scripture speaks directly to that ache: "God settles the solitary in a home" (Psalm 68:6).

GROW is the rare family comedy that's both fun and formative — a story about a lonely girl, a stubborn aunt, and the family they build together, wrapped in enough whimsy and moral clarity to make it worth your time. Just know that a couple of spoofed scenes might spook your littlest viewers before you press play. Our answer, the same one we opened with: worth the trip — caution for younger children.