The defence The Sentimental Softie
“Sincerity is not manipulation.”
The film risks embarrassment to make emotion communal, and that openness is harder than fashionable detachment.
Back to trending 
The Boy Who Could Fly
Drama · Family · Fantasy · 1986
Milly and Louis, and their recently-widowed mom, Charlene, move to a new neighborhood. Once there, they all deal with a variety of personal problems, but Milly finds a friend in Eric, her autistic next door neighbor. Eric has a fascination with flight, and as the story progresses, he exerts an enthralling force of change on all those around him.
Movie details
The Boy Who Could Fly
“A very special love. And a very special magic. But is it real magic or just an illusion?”
1986 Drama · Family · Fantasy 1h 54m
Critical arithmetic
The consensus, allegedly.
Scores change. Arguments endure.
IMDb
6.5 / 10
6.7K votes
Rotten Tomatoes
59 %
Tomatometer
Metacritic
67 / 100
Metascore
TMDB
6.3 / 10
Community rating
External scores via OMDb · CC BY-NC 4.0. Values normalized for display; availability varies by title.
Milly and Louis, and their recently-widowed mom, Charlene, move to a new neighborhood. Once there, they all deal with a variety of personal problems, but Milly finds a friend in Eric, her autistic next door neighbor. Eric has a fascination with flight, and as the story progresses, he exerts an enthralling force of change on all those around him.
CriticWise case file
What this film says about your taste.
Not a recommendation score. A measure of how closely the film’s taste signals resemble yours.
The archetype split
Who fights over The Boy Who Could Fly?
For the defence
The Sentimental Softie
“You came to feel something, and you will.”
Read their case For the prosecution
The Cool Ironist
“Feeling things is a little embarrassing.”
Read their objectionThe split comes from the same five-axis model used by the test, not audience ratings or review sentiment.
Taste neighbourhood
Nearby on the taste map.
TMDB supplies the candidates. CriticWise reorders them by craft, strangeness, prestige, emotion, and pace.
Three Wishes
Fantasy · 1995
While Jane Holman is driving with her two sons, she accidentally runs into a drifter, Jack McCloud, who breaks his leg. Being responsible, Jane invites Jack, and his dog, to stay at her home until his leg has healed. Jack struggles to adapt their lifestyle, and finds himself loved by the family.
Jonathan Livingston Seagull
Drama · 1973
Jonathan is sick and tired of the boring life in his seagull clan. He rather experiments with new, always more daring flying techniques. Since he doesn't fit in, the elders expel him from the clan. So he sets out to discover the world beyond the horizon in a quest for wisdom.
A Second Chance
Drama · 2011
A young girl and her coach overcome adversity to make their way into the National Australian Gymnastics Squad.
The Good Witch
Family · 2008
A mysterious woman comes in to town and inhabits the local haunted mansion, making everyone wonder if she's a witch or "The Grey Lady".
Where the Red Fern Grows
Drama · 2003
Set in the Ozark Mountains during the Great Depression, Billy Coleman works hard and saves his earnings for 2 years to achieve his dream of buying two coonhound pups. He develops a new trust in God as he faces overwhelming challenges in adventure and tragedy roaming the river bottoms of Cherokee country with "Old Dan" and "Little Ann."
The Color of Friendship
Drama · 2000
Mahree Bok lives on a farm in South Africa. Her father is a policeman who cannot hide his joy when activist Steve Biko is caught by the South African authorities. Piper Dellums is the daughter of a US congressman from California and who lives in a nice home in Washington DC. When Mahree is chosen to spend a semester at the Dellums' house, she doesn't expect that her host family would be black. Nor do her hosts suspect that she is not a black South African.
Flicka
Family · 2006
Katy McLaughlin desires to work on her family's mountainside horse ranch, although her father insists she finish boarding school. Katy finds a mustang in the hills near her ranch. The headstrong 16 year old then sets her mind to tame a mustang and prove to her father she can run the ranch. But when tragedy happens, it will take all the love and strength the family can muster to restore hope.
Greyfriars Bobby
Drama · 1961
In Scotland 1865, An old shepherd and his little Skye terrier go to Edinburgh. But when the shepherd dies of pneumonia, the dog remains faithful to his master, refuses to be adopted by anyone, and takes to sleeping on his master's grave in the Greyfriars kirkyard, despite a caretaker with a "no dogs" rule. And when Bobby is taken up for being unlicensed, it's up to the children of Edinburgh and the Lord Provost to decide what's to be done.
Hereafter
Drama · 2010
Three people — a blue-collar American, a French journalist and a London school boy — are touched by death in different ways.
Jack of the Red Hearts
Drama · 2016
A teenage con artist tricks a desperate mother into hiring her as a live-in companion for her autistic daughter.
Where it lives
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Names above the title
The people responsible.
Cast & crew
Directed by
Nick Castle
Written by
Nick Castle
Lucy Deakins
Milly
Jay Underwood
Eric
Fred Savage
Louis
Bonnie Bedelia
Charlene
Colleen Dewhurst
Mrs. Sherman
Fred Gwynne
Uncle Hugo
Jason Priestley
Gary
Court is in session
Put The Boy Who Could Fly on trial.
Two incompatible taste archetypes. One film. Read the arguments, then issue a completely binding cultural ruling.
The prosecution The Cool Ironist
“The strings are showing.”
Every cue tells you exactly what to feel and when, leaving sentiment to do the work character should have done.