Alexander and the Terrible, Horrible, No Good, Very Bad Day (PG, 91 mins)

Starring: Ed Oxenbould, Steve Carell, Jennifer Garner, Dylan Minnette, Kerris Dorsey, Elise and Zoey Vargas, Sidney Fullmer, Jennifer Coolidge, Lincoln Melcher

Director: Miguel Arteta

Released: October 24 (UK & Ireland)

LOOSELY based on a simple 32-page picture book by Judith Viorst, this nicely-played comedy has a reassuring message for all harassed modern families.

Young Alexander Cooper (Ed Oxenbould) endures a terrible day in which everything seems to go wrong.

He wakes up to find chewing gum in his hair, a joke is played on him online by a schoolmate and, worst of all, one of the most popular boys in school is throwing a big-bucks shindig on the same day as his birthday party.

When he returns home, he feels that the rest of his family aren’t sympathetic to his plight. His mother (Jennifer Garner) is too focused on her job, and can’t shelve her guilt at leaving the youngest member of the family, baby Trevor, at home with her husband (Steve Carell).

Meanwhile, Alexander’s elder brother, Anthony (Dylan Minnette) is concerned with pacifying his shallow girlfriend in advance of his junior prom whilst his sister Emily (Kerris Dorsey) is obsessed with perfecting her musical numbers for her forthcoming leading role in a school production of Peter Pan.

So Alexander makes a wish that the rest of his family would learn how he feels by having a “terrible, horrible, no good, very bad day”.

And, because the film actually opens with a scene of them all returning home looking scarred and despondent in a car which is falling apart, we know his wish is about to come true, in some style.

Basingstoke Gazette:

Writer Rob Lieber has done a good job with this inoffensive fare, constructing a decent film script from the slight source material.

Performances across the board of the core family are warm and winning, leaving room for actors such as Dick Van Dyke and Jennifer Coolidge, the latter playing a psychopathic driving instructor, to have some fun.

Even though it is crystal clear that a lesson will be learned at the end, the film stays simply sweet, avoiding anything cloying or overtly saccharine.

The unit embrace the chaos and inevitably come out the other side smiling and closer than ever, reassuring any disaster prone folk out there that “some days are just bad”.