The title should really belong to a wacky tweenie comedy, but that is not what is on offer from American indie film-maker and photographer Michael Cuesta, who directed the notable drama LIE, with Brian Cox as an ageing paedophile. This film is recognisably the work of the same person, but it plays much safer with its material - particularly its storyline involving a precocious 12-year-old's crush on an older man.

A terrible tragedy disrupts the lives of a bunch of suburban kids in small-town America: an overweight kid rebelling against his parents, a kid who wears a hockey mask to conceal a birthmark and, perhaps most prominently, the daughter of a psychotherapist (Annabella Sciorra), who conceives a secret passion for one of her mother's patients. She eavesdrops on their sessions for clues on how to befriend him, in the style of a Woody Allen comedy, and interestingly, the movie features a cameo from Allen's old sparring partner, Tony Roberts.

Zoe Weizenbaum gives a very good performance as the smitten youngster, Malee. In fact, all the children are good; they find themselves in a softer-centred, more forgiving movie than at first appeared to be on offer.