Little Man Tate (1991 Jodie Foster)

Jodie gets best out of Adam Hann-Byrd, casts Diane Weist as wonderfully uptight intellectual, David (Hyde) Pierce as assistant, Debbie Mazur as friend. Scott Frank's screenplay stresses that the kid needs human warmth - so the day he spends knocking about with Harry Conick Jr is supposed to symbolise what he's missing - but Jodie's a fun mum and you would have thought she would have definitely got up to this sort of lark with the kid? Anyway. Josh Mostel is a quantum physics professor.

Mike Southon shot it. Jazz score by Mark Isham is welcome.

It sort of doesn't quite connect.