The Academy Award-winning writer and director behind Spotlight and The Station Agent, Tom McCarthy, has a new kids movie coming to Disney+. McCarthy’s new movie is Timmy Failure: Mistakes Were Made, based on Stephan Pastis’ popular children’s series. The movie is a far cry from McCarthy’s more adult films, like Win Win and The Visitor, but it looks like it has a similarly kind-natured spirit about it.
The Trailer
The Disney+ film tells the story of an imaginative young man named Timmy (Winslow Fegley). Timmy owns his own private detective agency, has a 1,500 polar bear named Total as his partner, and lives in Portland, Oregon, where he’ll go on an epic quest to find his mother’s fancy electric scooter.
Tom McCarthy and Disney
McCarthy has co-written several kid-friendly Disney movies over the years. He’s the kind of talented writer who can seamlessly transition from kid movies to adult movies. McCarthy co-wrote Christopher Robin, worked on the story for Pixar’s Up, and penned Million Dollar Arm. Behind the camera, he’s someone who gets the best out of great actors. He knows how to make worlds, both ordinary or extraordinary, feel real. Win Win, The Station Agent, The Visitor, and Spotlight — McCarthy knows how to tell a story well.
A Shoutout to The Cobbler
The one Tom McCarthy movie his Disney+ film calls to mind is The Cobbler. It’s one of the strangest Adam Sandler movies ever to play in a theater. There’s a fantasy element to it, like Timmy Failure, and it’s just the oddest mixture of goofiness and adult drama. It doesn’t work, but it’s such a fascinating movie from McCarthy. Everything is in its right place in his stories, but The Cobbler is… different. Everybody should watch that movie at least once in their lives, just for the sheer audacity of it. It is not a movie that suffers from a lack of ambition.
What Else to Watch on Disney+
Not a whole lot, besides the obvious Disney animated classics and live-action films. Plus, the streaming service just removed Home Alone from their library without any reason given (the audacity!). There are still loads of Disney titles unavailable due to rights and contracts with other streamers. So far, the streaming service is a letdown, especially since they show few very few titles from 20th Century Fox. There’s loads of great movies Disney could introduce to audiences on their massive platform, but it’s mostly their hits, classics, and more famous titles they are highlighting. It’s similar to Netflix in that sense: not a place to brush up on movie history or the classics. After The Mandalorian wrapped its first season, there’s not much else on there that’s all that appealing. At least not yet.
Timmy Failure: Mistakes Were Made Synopsis
An elementary school oddball, the clueless but confident Timmy must navigate the world of adults around him, including his overburdened mother (Ophelia Lovibond), her well-meaning boyfriend (Kyle Bornheimer), his teacher/nemesis (Wallace Shawn) and a school-mandated guidance counselor (Craig Robinson), all in his quest to become the best detective in the world. The producers are Jim Whitaker, p.g.a., and Tom McCarthy, p.g.a., with Michael Bederman and Kate Churchill serving as executive producers. The film stars Winslow Fegley, Ophelia Lovibond, Kyle Bornheimer, Wallace Shawn dan Craig Robinson.
Timmy Failure: Mistakes Were Made is available to stream February 7th on Disney+.
