Grounded (PG) <!-- none onestar twostar threestar fourstar fivestar -->

Drifting around somewhere in baggage reclaim is the ghost of a shrewd and touching comedy about the effect divorce has on children - it being the premise of this film that, come the holidays, America's airports are packed with the unaccompanied offspring of broken marriages being shuttled between parents. Instead, Hollywood being what it is, we have to settle for slapstick about smart kids being stranded by blizzards between flights and having fun evading mean adults, the whole thing rounded off with a little Yuletide gooeyness about the true meaning of family. Most children, I would guess, will have a whale of a time watching the grown-ups wrestle with pain and humiliation; accompanying adults will find the sameness of the plot and the mugging of the older actors made bearable by those wisps of intelligence and feeling, and by some enjoyably confident and subtle performances from a couple of the kids.