GROW

Name: GROW
Item: GROW
Author: Review

"Big Dreams, Bigger Pumpkins"

Family Content: -1 Caution advised for older children, including teenagers, and sensitive adults.

Entertainment Quality:

	None	Light	Moderate	Heavy
Language
Violence
Sex
Nudity

Credits →

What You Need To Know:

GROW is a charming comedy set in England about an abandoned girl, Charlie Little, sent to live with her long-lost Aunt Dinah. Dinah runs a family farm located in the “Pumpkin Capital of the World.” Dinah notices Charlie has special gifts communicating with plants. Meanwhile, the entire town is buzzing about preparing their pumpkins for the annual pumpkin growing contest. Charlie decides to use her magical gifts with plants and grow her own pumpkin for the contest. She breathes life into both her pumpkin and her Aunt’s farm. However, Charlie faces sabotage and stiff competition.

GROW is a fun, whimsical movie. The sets and costumes add to the story’s whimsy. The acting is really good. It draws viewers into the action. GROW has a strong moral worldview stressing family bonds, hard work, perseverance, keeping your word, taking responsibility, and repentance. However, GROW has magical thinking, a Halloween scene with witches and pumpkin-related violence when a town saboteur stabs several pumpkins. Those scenes spoof movies like PSYCHO and THE GODFATHER, which may be scary for some children. So, MOVIEGUIDE® advises caution for younger children.

Content:

(BB, C, Pa, O, E, L, V, S, A, MM):

Dominant Worldview and Other Worldview Content/Elements:

Strong moral worldview, with some references to repentance, focuses on family bonds, hard work and perseverance, with a pro-adoption message, and stresses the importance of keeping your word and taking responsibility for those you love, light pagan content with magical thinking where a little girl can feel what plants feel and communicate with them, a Halloween scene includes light occult elements with children in witch costumes and skeleton decorations, plus there are light environmentalist elements with several conversations about saving the planet and organic companion farming;

Foul Language:

One light profanity (OG) and two “h” words during outtakes in the end credits, plus some light crude language, mostly silly, with words like Scallywag, stupid, brat, and imbecile, a man talks about urinating on a pumpkin seed, but nothing is shown, and a few instances of “shut up”;

Violence:

Slapstick violence throughout included people being chased by others with shovels, a bee attack, people smack or push each other around, woman pulls a gun on people in two instances to protect her land, and there are a series of scenes depicting someone stabbing pumpkins where pumpkin juice is presented like blood;

Sex:

No sex, but a woman spanks her husband’s bottom playfully with a horse whip, another woman says “orgasm” instead of organic but is quickly corrected; two men jokingly say “I love you” on the phone and hug in celebration, but not in a sexual way.

Nudity:

No nudity, but a character wears tight clothing and shirt that exposes her midriff;

Alcohol Use:

A character pops a bottle of champagne and pours two glasses, but no one is shown drinking, the same character holds two liquor bottles in some outtakes during the credits;

Smoking and/or Drug Use and Abuse:

No smoking or drugs; and,

Miscellaneous Immorality:

Instance of stealing but rebuked, child sneaks and tries to run away, light bullying followed by a quick fight between a boy and a girl, man conspires to rig the pumpkin contest with the use of bribery and blackmail and sabotage but sees the error of his ways and repents, a couple cheats to make their pumpkin heavier, neighbors trespass and spy on each other and try to sabotage pumpkins, and a mother abandons her daughter to pursue a movie career but apologizes.

More Detail:

GROW is a charming movie set in England about an orphan named Charlie Little sent to live with her long-lost Aunt Dinah, who runs a family farm located in the “Pumpkin Capital of the World,” where Charlie uses her magical gifts with plants to win a pumpkin growing contest.

Charlie Little finds herself abandoned by her mother, who escaped to Hollywood to be a star. The movie opens with Charlie trying to sneak onto a bus headed to the airport so she can locate her mom. Once caught and sent back to the orphanage, her Aunt Dinah, a grumpy farmer, arrives to take her to live with her at the Little Family Farm.

Charlie helps with farm chores, and Aunt Dinah discovers that Charlie has a magical gift of communicating with plants. When Charlie catches wind of the local pumpkin growing contest, she uses her special power to lovingly grow Peter the Pumpkin. The orange gourd is a massive pumpkin that grows when Charlie dances and talks to it.

Dinah scoffs at first but enlists the help of her eccentric neighbor, Arlo, who sees Charlie’s amazing plant capabilities. The trio joins forces to nurture the pumpkin and work hard in an effort to grab the cash prize.

What was once a dying farm because a joyful and fun homestead, where the bond beyond Charlie and Dinah grows just like Peter the Pumpkin. Yet, a sinister plot unfolds as a local saboteur starts taking out rival pumpkins one-by-one. To complicate matters, a local fertilizer company is using technology to engineer a massive pumpkin.

Will Charlie overcome the odds against her and win the contest?

The set and costumes in GROW add to the story’s whimsy. The acting is well done and draws the viewers into the action. GROW has a strong moral worldview focusing on family bonds, hard work and perseverance. However, the movie has some magical thinking, a Halloween scene with witches and skeletons, a lewd double entendre, and pumpkin-related violence when the town saboteur stabs several pumpkins. GROW also includes scenes spoofing movies like PSYCHO and THE GODFATHER, which may be scary for some children. MOVIEGUIDE® advises caution for older children.