This melodramatic tale about two misfit lads growing up in smalltown America is based, distantly, on novelist John Irving's A Prayer for Owen Meany.

It's 1964 and loner Joe (Joseph Mazzello) and young dwarf Simon (Ian Michael Smith) are best pals.

Simon believes he is destined for great things, while Joe would like to know who his father is.

Joe's doting mother (Ashley Judd) won't tell him. But tragedy will change their lives for ever.

Sentimental and amusing, the film is engaging, if unexceptional entertainment.

The two lads get sterling support from Judd and Oliver Platt as her beau. Jim Carrey narrates the tale and appears, as the adult Joe, at the start and the end.