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Walter Matthau in Dennis the Menace: "I'm an old codger named Mr. Wilson, and the little blond kid next door drives me nuts. Baby-sitting Dennis is like having to listen to MTV at top volume. But he will foil a thief, retrieve the stolen booty and make me a better human being. G.D. that kid!"
Ben Kingsley in Searching for Bobby Fischer: "I'm a reclusive chess master, isolated from human feeling. But I'll tutor a seven-year-old chess prodigy who's as cute as a Keane portrait. He will win my heart and teach me how to love life."
John Lynch in The Secret Garden: "I'm a reclusive grieving widower who blames my sickly son for the death of his beautiful mother. But he and I will be shown the light by my niece, and we will all celebrate life's joys in my spacious backyard."
Mel Gibson in The Man Without a Face: "I'm a reclusive griever whose disfigured face and mysterious past have isolated me from human feeling. But I'll tutor a fatherless 12-year-old boy so he gets into a prep school. I will learn much in return."
Willy in Free Willy: "I'm an orca whale, moody over being separated from my family. But I will teach, and learn from, a fatherless 12-year-old boy . . ."
And so it goes, in Made in America, Rookie of the Year, FatherHood: men who get some remedial humanizing, '90s-style, from kids. In this week's Sleepless in Seattle, an eight-year-old explains some mystery to his dad. "The reason I know this," the child says, "is because I'm younger and purer and therefore more in touch with cosmic forces." This is a joke, but in Hollywood there are no jokes.
Was there ever a bad child in the world -- a spiteful, stubborn, domineering sapper of his parents' spirit? There is rarely one in a Hollywood movie, especially this summer, with its flock of appealing, natural child actors -- persuasive emblems of wisdom and innocence. They help sell the idea behind these films: that childhood is a state we are supposed to attain, not grow out of. It is the new, regressive Quest theme: adults aspiring to be kids.
Hollywood did not need a Body by Jake workout to get its movies into PG shape; it required no Marianne Williamson exhortation to spur it to reunite the nuclear family onscreen. The industry simply looked at the numbers. Family movies can be made cheaply and can reap deeply. "In addition to selling the ticket to the young child," says producer Scott Rudin (The Addams Family, Sister Act, Searching for Bobby Fischer), "you also sell tickets to five of his friends and three of their parents. For the same marketing dollar, the quantity of purchase is much higher. And kids are a loyal audience. I've seen kids walk out, buy another ticket and go back in. The repeat business is unbelievable."