Ben Stiller in David Gordon Green's Family Comedy

In what feels almost like a cleansing ritual after wrestling with studio horror franchises, David Gordon Green Nutcracker sees the director return closer to his indie roots, observing characters organically emerge from their rural or small-town environments. This cute fish-out-of-water comedy about the unexpected rewards of a reunited family attempts to approximate the naturalism, lyricism and raw emotion of Green's early work. George Washington AND All the real girlsbut it's too predictably sentimental to have a comparable effect.

The idea came from Green's encounter with the four spirited young sons of an old friend, and Leland Douglas's script seems to leave room for semi-improvisation by the kids, who play versions of themselves. This gives the film a disarming sincerity that matches Ben Stiller's sensitive, understated performance as a stiff Chicagoan thrust into the awkward role of parent. But the abundance of montages and exuberant slow-motion escapades only underscores the lack of narrative substance.

Green acknowledges a debt to youth films such as The Bad News Bears AND Detachexpressing his desire to tell a story without cynicism, in which the young characters are not weighed down by the usual cinematic patina. In this respect, he achieves this thanks to the spontaneity of the Janson brothers, who are clearly in their element, playing unruly, home-schooled pranksters, and caring for the pets and livestock that roam freely in and out of the messy house.

Renamed the Kicklighters for this fictional experiment, they consist of Justice (Homer Janson), who is 12 years old; middle son Junior (Ulysses Janson), who is 10 years old; and twins Samuel and Simon (Atlas and Arlo Janson), who are 8 years old.

Another film Green cites as an influence is Uncle Buckand Stiller's Michael in many ways serves a similar function to John Candy's title character in that comedy. Only Michael isn't a listless drunk. But he's not a classic Stiller neurotic either. A joyless real estate developer, he arrives in Ohio in his flashy yellow Porsche expecting to sign some papers authorizing custody of his grandchildren, who have been orphaned when both their parents died in a car accident. But things don't go so smoothly.

The boys are introduced as they enter a nighttime amusement park, activating one of the rides before a security guard wakes up and realizes what's happening and they hurtle across a field, jumping exultantly into the air as they go. Michael is greeted with a bill for the damage they've caused, as well as back rent on the dance studio run by his sister, the boys' deceased mother. He's also informed by Family Services Officer Gretchen (Linda Cardellini) that the promising foster candidates she'd been eyeing to take the boys have fallen through.

Michael, or Mike, as his brothers insist on calling him once they finally talk to him, is less than thrilled about being forced to care for four feral children instead of returning to Chicago to finalize a major real estate deal he’s been working on for the past six years. He knows nothing about them, and all they seem to know about him is that their mother once said he was incapable of love.

The Kicklighter kids are a fun group, maintaining a close bond even though Justice occasionally retreats into solitude, nursing a crush on Mia (Maren Heisler), a girl from dance class. All but the eldest have long golden hair, which gives them an ethereal aura that contrasts with the voracious appetite for chaos that makes them so difficult to manage.

As the Jansons are non-professional actors, their dialogue is often mumbled and lost. But they make up for it with the authenticity of their connection to the world of the film and their deep unity as true brothers, often speaking all at once.

Douglas's script stalls pretty efficiently, teasing the possibility of two different potential parents (played by Toby Huss and Edi Patterson) initially eager to take in the siblings. But the template for this kind of heartwarming comedy is set in stone, so it's clear from the start that it's only a matter of time before Uncle Mike melts and melts into his destined role as de facto father. To the filmmakers' credit, the formulaic aspects are never overplayed, and the gentle hints of a possible romance with Gretchen are pleasantly underplayed.

There is charm in the way Michael's last walls of resistance are broken down, through a performance that the boys stage in the city of The Nutcracker's Mustachetheir radical rewriting of Tchaikovsky's ballet. It also serves as a tribute to their deceased parents, a melancholy note of loss that otherwise remains largely unexplored.

Perhaps to avoid giving the boys too much weight in the acting department, the script is generally less interested in the brothers’ grief than in Michael’s rediscovery of a heart, an organ obviously unnecessary in the soulless world of real estate. He revels in fond childhood memories of playing with his younger sister, a part of his life and a central figure in it that he’d shelved.

Nutcracker It's not exactly the pinnacle of uplifting family comedy, but for audiences willing to tune into Green's loose, flowing pace, the emotional payoff will be touching.