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There are more laughs than you might expect in this light-hearted vehicle for the normally dire David Spade. He plays Dickie Roberts, the washed-up former child star who, having missed his real-life childhood, is unable to generate the emotion necessary to clinch a possible movie comeback. To solve the problem, he moves in with an all-American family who, with grim Hollywood inevitability, at first resent his presence then warm to his oddball personality. The screenplay degenerates into schmaltz occasionally — and there’s a pseudo-Oedipal strand to the story that will strike some as subversive and others as plain weird — but Spade creates an unusual character who, despite being self-obsessed, is oddly vulnerable and likeable. If none of that appeals, you can always spend your time spotting the numerous cameo appearances by genuine former child stars (the end credits feature a fantastically gruesome massed choir of them).
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