IN this agreeable coming-of-age film, 14-year-old Duncan (Liam James) finds diversion from an anguished family situation during a summer holiday.

I confess that even were this film less agreeable, it gave me two fundamental causes for enjoyment: Toni Colette playing Duncan’s divorced mother Pam now cohabiting with Trent (Steve Carrell) and Allison Janney playing next-door neighbour Betty, seen mostly sipping a drink.

Duncan’s not getting on with Trent and misses his father. In a new community, knowing his mother’s sharing a new man’s bed, he’s feeling abandoned. Betty has a daughter whom he’s too withdrawn to approach. He commandeers the bike belonging to Trent’s unpleasant daughter and rides to the Water-Wizz park where manager Owen (Sam Rockwell) befriends him. The film develops around eccentric good guy Owen’s recognition of Duncan’s plight and his no-nonsense strategy for mentoring him.

The film’s central theme is crises in relationships. The closest it gets to a physical crisis comes when two younger adolescent boys get jammed in the water slide. Owen’s uncomplicated solution is to recruit a larger boy (many of the youngsters in the park are obese, probably chosen to make a mute statement) and send him down the tube to flush them out.

Without solving underlying problems, the film implies gentle, satisfying and optimistic possibilities. Next summer, Duncan and the girl next door may be pleased to see each other. But Duncan’s relationship with Trent is the more interesting to contemplate.

At Dendy, Capitol 6, Palace Electric and Hoyts Belconnen