Dad?What, Lanny?Which do you think is more patient, an idea or a hope?I'm suddenly really annoyed. He's too old for shit like this. Or too young. It's fucking silly.
A son attuned to nature, a father who isn't. The son, a child who is of the village — not just from the village but of the village — becomes entwined with Dead Papa Toothwort who lived there when the Domesday Book was compiled and who, far from dead and gone, has since become part of the community's folklore. Lanny, the child understands that we are of the earth and not merely living off the earth and, when faced with almost certain death after an accident in the woods, he calls on Dead Papa Toothwort who keeps him alive and arranges to return him to his parents and to an artist who has befriended him.
An exploration of what it means to be human in a land that we're damaging. An element of the fantastic in the everyday capturing the spirit of a place. A father and son so temperamentally different that the father never seems to know what to make of his son. A reminder that we are all, ultimately, of the earth and not just from it. And that judgments made quickly of those we know nothing of beyond what appearances present and invariably incorrect judgments.