Alexander and the okay, not so bad movie

We’ve all had that particularly bad day. The alarm doesn’t go off. You say the wrong thing. You’re late for work. You spill coffee all over the kitchen. You get into a fight with your spouse. At the office, you accidentally erase a crucial computer file. Nothing goes right.

This is what life is like for poor Alexander (Ed Oxenbould) but none of his family seems to care. On the midnight moment of his twelfth birthday, he makes a candle cake wish that somehow they would realize and understand that he just doesn’t have good days like they do.

Somehow, that wish comes true. This is Disney fare after all, so it could just as easily have been called Freaky Wednesday, except, of course, that it’s based on a book with the impossibly-named Alexander and the Terrible, Horrible, No Good, Very Bad Day by Judith Viorst.

Mom Kelly (Jennifer Garner) is on the verge of a major promotion at a publishing company and it all hinges on the launch of one children’s book. Dad Ben (Steve Carell) has been out of work as a rocket scientist for several months but he has a big interview that could change the game in a big way for him. High schooler Anthony (Dylan Minnette) is prepping to take his girlfriend to the prom but he has to get through his driver’s test first. Middle schooler Emily (Kerris Dorsey) is set to play the part of Peter Pan for the premiere of her school’s play, if only she doesn’t get a cold. And toddler Trevor (played by twin girls Elise Vargas and Zoey Vargas) is always happily in tow, thanks to his special soother.

Because of that wish, everything goes Alexander’s way and absolutely nothing goes everybody else’s ways. When everything needs to go perfectly, everything goes imperfectly. It’s like National Lampoon’s Vacation but the Griswolds have been replaced by the Coopers. Movies like this always make me feel so sad for the poor shlubs. Even when things eventually work out (it’s a Disney movie, remember?) there’s still a tinge of displeasure that you’ve just sat there watching them suffer needlessly at the cruel hand of fate and you couldn’t do anything about it if you wanted to. You laughed at their misfortunes, every misstep a schadenfreudic delight. The day is a disaster of epic proportions.

There’s not much to say about this movie because it all transpires exactly as it should, and no one should have any misconceptions about anything. It’s like watching an 81-minute version of a half-hour Disney sitcom, and for a very good reason: that’s exactly what it is.

This is pure pap for the masses: saccharine sweet and deliberately calculated in every heartstring pulling plot point. Sure, it works but it just means that we’re all suckers for the formula and the reminder to be careful what we wish for.