by MALCOLM FRASER

In this age of Hollywood unoriginality and kiddie target marketing, it’s surprising that it has taken this long for someone to adapt Thomas Rockwell’s 1973 book How to Eat Fried Worms, a book whose title alone is so revolting I approached it with trepidation even as a gross-stuff-loving little boy. It’s even more surprising that it’s a pretty great movie.

Billy (Luke Benward) is the prototypical new kid in school, recently uprooted from his hometown by a family move. To make his situation even more dire, he’s not only shy and awkward but also prone to frequent puking due to a weak stomach. Somehow, though, in an act of misguided kiddie bravado, he accepts a challenge from bully Joe (Adam Hicks) to eat 10 worms in a day. The plot simply follows this quest, as Joe’s gang endeavours to humiliate Billy with increasingly disgusting worm recipes.

More often than not, kids’ movies these days simply consist of insipid characters draped around a dumbed-down plot, with occasional “clever” references apparently intended as an act of mercy to the adults suffering through the dreck their kids have been brainwashed into dragging them to. Fried Worms is a welcome respite from this trend—it captures the spirit of childhood (or at least young boyhood) perfectly, often feeling like a film that a 10-year-old boy might make given the resources.

What that means is frequent bursts of hyperactivity for no apparent reason, a mindset consisting of confusion (disguised as hostility) towards girls, mischievous scheming towards authority and unmitigated contempt for younger siblings—and most of all, a devotion towards all things gross. The bullies’ delight as they prepare the worm recipes (which, be warned, are genuinely stomach-churning) gets you so caught up that you forget they’re the bad guys. But that’s part of Fried Worms’ charm, too—its bullies aren’t evil, they’re just screwed-up kids who’ve been picked on by others and are comically desperate to assert their own power in the dominance hierarchy that is childhood social interaction.

The pint-sized cast is uniformly great—Benward and Hicks rise to the occasion as hero and villain, respectively, as do the various misfits who compose each other’s entourage. Particular mention must go to Austin Rogers as the hilariously spazzy Adam, and to six-year-old Ty Panitz, who excels as Billy’s younger brother Woody—drooling, bursting into song and pulling off bizarro lines like “My dilly-dink is my penis” with panache.

As funny, sad, confusing and ridiculous as childhood itself, Fried Worms will spin your kid into a hyperactive frenzy, and quite likely get you wistfully thinking back to those not-so-innocent days gone by with either a smile or a cringe.

How to Eat Fried Worms opens Friday, Aug. 25

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