Inspired by the irreverent family films of his youth, David Gordon Green creates a predictable adoption comedy featuring four boys who behave like farm animals.

The Janson brothers — Homer, Ulysses, Atlas and Arlo — are undoubtedly sweet, well-behaved kids in real life. (No director with a respect for common sense would cast them in a movie if that weren't the case.) Few would say the same about the unruly orphans these four boys play in director David Gordon Green's oddball Toronto Film Festival opener, "Nutcrackers": a nearly feral wolf pack who rely on their stern uncle, Michael Maxwell (Ben Stiller), to spare them the indignity of an orphanage after their parents are both killed in a car crash.

Michael, a man of big cities and fancy shoes, arrives at his deceased sister’s farm in a yellow Porsche and promptly steps into a fresh pile of animal manure. Christmas is just around the corner, and Michael has taken a few days off to sort out the estate—a task that includes getting the Kicklighter boys adopted—and then it’s time to return to Chicago, where a career-defining deal is about to close.

“When I wake up tomorrow, will you still be there?” asks 12-year-old Justice (Homer Janson, looking primed for an acting career). While his unkempt siblings, Junior (Ulysses) and twins Samuel (Atlas) and Simon (Arlo), look like long-haired flower children, Homer has soulful brown eyes, dark lashes and a distinctly forlorn-puppy look. The boy could be Jacob Elordi’s younger brother, though the fact that he’s playing alongside his actual brothers (each of whom was raised by one of Green’s old friends) makes their antics all the more convincing.