Middle-aged photographer and businessman Robert "Bobby" Garfield (Anton Yelchin) returns to his old hometown upon learning that his best friend, decorated soldier John "Sully" Sullivan (Will Rothhaar) has died in a traffic accident and begins recollecting his past when he visits an abandoned house where he used to live. Bobby finds that his other friend Carol also died a few years ago. During a summer in the 1960s, an eleven-year-old Bobby lives with his widowed mother, self-centered Liz Garfield (Hope Davis) (she is a bitter and vain woman), and has two friends, Carol Gerbe (Mika Boorem) and Sully. They experienced many things together, the most mysterious of which was meeting an older gentleman named Ted Brautigan (Sir Anthony Hopkins), whom Liz takes in as a boarder. Liz does not trust Ted at all (as he has all his belongings in a paper bag) but needs the money. Liz is having an affair with her boss Don Biderman (Adam LeFevre). Carol & Bobby have a special affection for one another including sharing a kiss "by which all others will be measured". Mrs. Gerber (Deirdre O'Connell) is Carol's mother. Ted takes the lonely Bobby under his wing, while his mother is busy with her job. The two form a paternal father-son bond, and it slowly becomes evident that Ted has some psychic and telekinetic powers. After reading Bobby's mind and realizing that the boy dreams of owning a bicycle; Ted kindly offers Bobby $1 a week in exchange for his reading a newspaper out loud. Bobby quickly figures out that Ted has some other purpose in mind. These same powers are the reason that Brautigan has come to this sleepy town. In due course Ted entrusts Bobby with the knowledge that he has escaped the grasp of the "Low Men", strange people who would stop at nothing to get him back in their control. dark clothes and dark hats, moving in packs in flashy cars. Ted says they want him back under their control. Ted reads Bobby's mind and tells him tales about how Ted and Bobby's father were at the same football game. He tells how an aging footballer was playing that day. His team was losing. He kept fighting and kept crawling 5 - 10 yards at each pass. Eventually, it was a miracle, and the aging footballer won the game for his team. Mysteriously, Ted asks Bobby to keep an eye on the neighborhood looking for any signs of announcements about missing pets (which could allude to the presence of "low men"). Ted can sense that Bobby also has mind reading abilities and is almost training him for it. Bobby attends the carnival and is able to play the card guessing game really well. He wins every time. He has the gift, and he scares himself with it. Bobby sees "low men" in town, but does not tell Ted, afraid to lose his new friend (Ted had told him that he would have to leave, in case the "low men" came to town). Bobby, Carol and John have frequent conflicts with the local town bully, Harry Doolin (Timmy Reifsnyder), whom Ted is able to scare away by looking into his mind and finding out that his violence is used to cover up the fact that he is secretly a cross-dresser. Liz leaves Bobby in Ted's care when she goes with her boss for the weekend for a seminar. She was reluctant, but there was no other babysitter available, who would do it for free. Ted and Bobby have a close shave with the "low men", when they pass by in their car. Ted asks Bobby to think about happy memories to confuse them. Ted prepares to leave town. However, at one point, Harry harasses and injures Carol, and when Ted manipulates her dislocated shoulder into place. Liz arrives, after being sexually assaulted by her boss, and mistakenly believes that Ted is a child molester. She is confronted by Ted's ability to tell her the truth about what she has been through, and how her behavior is affecting her relationship with her son, providing another reason that Ted must leave. That and the "low men" are closing in on him. Ted is eventually captured with the help of a tip from Liz. As some form of closure, Ted yells to Bobby as he is being driven away that he wouldn't have missed a moment "not for all the world", and later Bobby mirrors the same feelings. Bobby is later confronted by Harry, but Bobby grabs the latter's baseball bat and beats him with it. Liz later finds a new job in Boston and moves the family there. Before he leaves, Bobby and Carol say their goodbyes and share a final kiss. Returning to the present, Bobby turns to leave his old home wherein he meets a young girl named Molly. The two strike up a conversation wherein Molly reveals that she is Carol's daughter and that Carol died in recent years. Bobby gives Molly a photograph of a young Carol and the two become friends.
Read more →
