Now on VOD, The Tiger Rising adapts another novel by popular children’s author Kate DiCamillo, whose work has been turned into a few charming under-the-radar family favorites: The Tale of Despereaux, Because of Winn-Dixie and last year’s nutty girl-and-her-squirrel comedy Flora and Ulysses (and an animated The Magician’s Elephant is reportedly in the works for Netflix). But this new movie, about a kid who finds a penned-up tiger in the woods out back, might be her first dud – its theatrical release barely registered; it boasts supporting roles by Dennis Quaid and Queen Latifah, both well past their career peaks; and it arrives in the streaming realm with little fanfare. Let’s see if it deserves such a fate.
The Gist: The musical equivalent of watered-down butter fills our ears: soft pianos, funereal guitar strums, and is that a pennywhistle I hear? Maybe a pan flute? This is the sad score to Rob Horton’s (Christian Convery) life. He lives in a scruffy roadside motel with his dad (Sam Trammell). His mother (Katharine McPhee) got sick and died recently, although we see her in dreamy flashbacks that seem to have taken place on a floating cloud forever streaming with golden sunlight, or on the set of a faith-based Hallmark movie set in the actual capital-H Heaven. And on top of that, Rob has persistently itchy rashes on his legs, which get him sent home from school by his school principal, whose idiocy is represented by a combover that even the SNL costume dept. would deem too ridiculous. At least the time away from school will give him a reprieve from the constant bullying. There is not enough pan flute in the world to properly express young Rob’s pain.
One morning, Rob wanders through the woods behind the motel and comes across a beautiful, majestic tiger in a pen. He’ll soon learn it belongs to Beauchamp (Quaid), cretinous, loudmouthed owner of the motel who wears a cowboy pistol on his hip and treat’s Rob’s dad – he’s the…