'Timmy Failure: Mistakes Were Made' is a fun ride about living life your own way and sometimes solving mysteries
"Now, what I want is Facts. Teach these boys and girls nothing but facts," said Mr. Gradgrind, Superintendent of a school in Coketown. This is a line out of Charles Dickens' 'Hard Times' - a novel that focuses on the drudgery and monotony of life. Tom McCarthy's 'Timmy Failure: Mistakes Were Made' follows the route, only briefly.
Protagonist Timmy Failure, played by Winslow Fegley, is a tween who aims for greatness via his detective agency and to support him in his many adventures is a CGI-made 1500 pound polar bear named 'Total', whom he believes to be real. Timmy is someone who takes the adage - living in your bubble - seriously and he does justice to it throughout the film by setting out on an unending journey, to uncover the truth behind the dead class hamster, and lost segway.
While at it, he ends up doubting a classmate's intentions and is assured by her actions that she wants to drown the city of Portland (Timmy's hometown) in darkness by unplugging its main power switch. This bothers Timmy so much that on a school trip to the dam, he slyly leaves his group to find out what else his classmate has been up to. He scopes the area out, breaches security, and enters authorized areas but only to find that maybe he was after the wrong person.
However, for Timmy to come this far wasn't easy. His exploits were intermittently thwarted by Patty Failure (Ophelia Lovibond), his mother, and school teacher Mr. Fredrick Crocus (Wallace Shawn). They both believed strongly that Timmy needed to snap out of his imaginary world or else middle school would be a tough ground to cover. But, he found a mentor in his therapist (Craig Robinson) who guided him, told him he needed to learn from his experiences and adapt to changing situations. Losing cases, not being able to retrieve lost items shouldn't have to mean game over - it could very well be a clean slate.
It's a simple story threaded from Timmy's over-the-top imagination. McCarthy has indulged unabashedly in Timmy's flights of fancy, which is fantastic, but gets problematic when drawn out. Nevertheless, what's admirable is how the director wants his viewers to know that it's the little boy's way of running away from the truths of his life. His father walked out on him when he was little and his mother now works two jobs to keep the family of two afloat - and that too in a fun, brave way.
The key takeaway here is how Timmy fights the world around him so that they would believe in the part of his life he is close to. He even has an office he works out of and wishes to expand his agency downtown. He is a solid boy, with a lot of grit and determination. His classmates may find him weird and off-in-the-head for not participating in the school drama, but Timmy knows his priorities.
McCarthy tries best to present Timmy as someone to look up to - a tween who enjoys life in his own little way and never gets perturbed by criticisms. A clear message to every kid who gets bogged down by expectations and roles set by society.