Poor Rene Russo gets her own star vehicle here, but it's a turkey.

She's handed a short straw with the star role of real-life Long Island heiress Trudy Lintz, who, in the Twenties, turned her home into a vast menagerie and tried to raise a baby gorilla as if it were a child.

Like a Sixties Disney kid comedy mixed with outtakes from Doctor Dolittle, the film is bizarre, without being at all interesting or entertaining.

It's weird to see Francis Coppola's name as producer and his company Zoetrope attached to this project.

The best you can say about it is that it means well and is short.

Russo gives a brisk and capable performance, while Robbie Coltrane is OK as Trudy's doctor hubby but Alan Cumming is dreadful as the monkey keeper.