Review: 'H Is For Happiness' Plucky and Bright

It's as easy as A B C: "H Is For Happiness" gets an A for Effort, B for Bubbly and Bright, but C for the Curmudgeon Alert. If uber-plucky, precocious pre-teens whose glee and grins make you grit your teeth, beware the glare of cloud-defying sunshine.

Our super-smiley, seemingly undeterred heroine, Candice, might just make you cheer for this cheery soul as she tries to rid her parents and uncle of gloom and old wounds. It's an uphill battle for a 12-year-old social misfit who skips along her own unique path, friendless until she bonds with a cherubic new classmate who insists he is from another dimension. While you might wish some of the adult characters were allowed more of that (dimension), the two kids are given likable eccentricities and young actors Daisy Axon and Wesley Patten have chemistry and sparkle.

Visually, this Australian-set film is a feast in its outdoor settings, often shot from above. There are episodes of misery (Mom still mourning the loss of a baby) and mystery (enter the mythology-like mini-horse) and pesky reality (but to see seasick-induced vomiting is no fun). General believability and logic quotient are uneven, but there are engaging surprises, too.

The movie is family-friendly, despite the unfriendly family interactions. Director Jonathan Sheedy and screenwriter Lisa Hoppe (adapting Barry Jousberg's YA novel "My Life As An Alphabet") let us see life from a kid's perspective. Come take in the view from there.