SCREEN

The Polishes haven't entirely toned down their penchant for quirkiness, though, starting with the film's basic premise: Former NASA employee Charles Farmer (Thornton) never made it into space before he left the agency to take care of his family. He's since been busy building his own rocket in a barn on his rural Texas ranch, and plans to launch himself into space with the help of his wife (Madsen) and three children as his ground crew. The best thing that the Polishes do with this Disney-esque premise is take it completely at face value, bringing a matter-of-fact magical-realist tone to the story that gives immediate credence to Farmer's nutty ambitions. Thornton also gives an easy, unforced performance, and he's supported admirably by Madsen and two younger Polishes (each a child of one of the brothers) as Farmer's daughters.

Farmer still faces some serious obstacles from your standard filmic opponents of starry-eyed dreamers everywhere, including a bank that wants to foreclose on his ranch, government bureaucrats who won't approve his flight and FBI agents who see him as a threat to national security. He gives speeches about the value of holding onto your dreams as the score swells in the background, and these moments are sometimes overdone and certainly clichéd. But the way that the Polishes so enthusiastically embrace those clichés and integrate them with their slightly off-kilter worldview is what makes The Astronaut Farmer a success, a cuddly mainstream film for weird outcasts everywhere.