The Unbreakable Boy makes it hard to be on its side. It has a likable kid actor who does everything he can to annoy the audience in the same way he annoys his dad. So good job there. It also can’t decide whose story is being told… the kid, the mom, or (mostly) the dad.

It’s a pretty formulaic family drama about a kid with brittle bone disease AND autism and how his parents met, oopsied their way into pregnancy, and got married. It them ambles along being about too many things, including alcoholism, bullying, funny hats, trips to the doctor, bills, and so forth.

Getting it off the table, the kid has brittle bone disease just like Mr. Glass in Unbreakable. Get it? <nudge nudge wink wink>. The film has the audacity to use the same word in its title while name dropping Fight Club (twice) and A Few Good Men. But it never mentions Unbreakable? I call shenanigans!!

But that’s fine (except for the kid calling Fight Club one of his favorite movies… he’s ten!) if the movie weren’t so cloying, unfocused, and weird for a family-friendly drama about childhood disease and alcoholism (not in the same character, thankfully). It runs a little too long as it sifts through the detritus of whatever its central plot is until I grew tired of what is otherwise a pretty inoffensive movie.

This movie didn’t kick my dog OR my cat. It just didn’t give them pets (to torture a metaphor). It’s ok… ish? It’s well acted and it has a good heart. It just doesn’t have any focus or draw to it. It’s a lot of empty platitudes.

Score: 72