A family friendly film that goes organic.

Here’s the movie kid trying to reunite with the mother who left them for their own dreams. Her name is Charlie Little (Priya-Rose Brookwell), and she tries to escape from the orphanage to try to get to America where her mother has taken up acting.

Here’s her remaining relative in the U.K. Her aunt Dinah (Golda Rosheuvel), who runs the Little Farm. To Charlie, she might just need her for the free work. To her aunt, she might be whatever family she has left. One more responsible and less selfish than her sister.

So let’s make them the main heroines of “Grow,” a jolly and colorful-looking family film, which, as I mentioned, is set in the U.K. Mugford to be exact, and there’s a reason it’s known as the “Pumpkin Capital of the World.” Everybody loves Pumpkinfest as much as the people of Whoville love Christmas. You know what? I stand corrected. They’re just as passionate and competitive about their vegetables as Wallace and Gromit’s loyal customers in “Wallace and Gromit: The Curse of the Were-Rabbit,” which is 20-years-old this year. Man, I feel old.

We know the routine of the abandoned child trying to find a way to reunite with their lousy parent, but in this case, for some reason, Charlie may have a green thumb when it comes to plants. Only she can communicate with plants the way Dr. Dolittle can talk to animals. But they obviously aren’t given voice actors. Weed killers, however, that might be difficult. Which is why the farm must go organic.

While everyone, including the snooty Symthe-Gherkin (Tim McInnerny and Jane Horracks), refuses to help the girl with some pumpkin-growing advice, she and her aunt turn to the jolly trailer guy Arlo (Nick Frost) for guidance and support. And her new young friend is Oliver (Dominic McLaughlin), who is the son of the pumpkin scientist Mr. Gregory (Jeremy Swift). I think his pumpkin might be radioactive, given the green ambiance.

And there’s also a Michael Myers pumpkin killer, whose gourd slayings are in the “Psycho” and “Godfather” traditions. Oh, yeah. Now, I know this is almost like “The Curse of the Were-Rabbit.” That’s how much “Grow” is willing to throw at its target audience, which includes kids and their parents who might get the movie references a lot more than the youngsters would.

“Grow” is not released by a major studio and there’s not much commercialism, so you and your kids probably haven’t heard about this movie. But if you have on a smaller scale and listen to the critics, then you might be delighted by the sweetness and energy inside. Yes, we have to get the obligatory poop jokes or fertilizer jokes in this case (and Matt Damon handled them sharply in “The Martian” a decade ago), but we also get some charming performances from Rosheuvel, Frost, and Brookwell, and some high-spirited energy.

It’s definitely a fantasy when the girl can community with plants and make her pumpkin grow at the last minute or so. But it can also resonate with reality, such as the girl inadvertently changing her aunt’s outlook on life and her reuniting with her lousy mother. It’s a movie/TV formula when the kid wants to reunite with their long lost parent, who either turn out to be jerks or people regretting their bad choices. But “Grow” chooses not to be mean-spirited in its execution, and likes to move forward with Pumpkinfest.

This is a family movie that I wouldn’t recommend to an adult on their own. I would recommend it to an adult with kids. And I know there are plenty of those out there. That is if they have heard about “Grow.”