Grow

This topic contains:

• overall comments and recommendations
• details of classification and consumer advice lines for Grow
• a review of Grow completed by the Australian Council on Children and the Media (ACCM) on 18 January 2026.

Overall comments and recommendations

About the movie

This section contains details about the movie, including its classification by the Australian Government Classification Board and the associated consumer advice lines. Other classification advice (OC) is provided where the Australian film classification is not available.

ACCM review

This review of the movie contains the following information:

• a synopsis of the story
• themes
• use of violence
• material that may scare or disturb children
• product placement
• sexual references
• nudity and sexual activity
• use of substances
• coarse language
• the movie’s message

A synopsis of the story

Charlie (Priya-Rose Brookwell) is a young girl who was abandoned by her mother when young. She has since been brought up in a children’s home, from which she repeatedly tries to escape in order to find her mother. The home eventually finds that she has an aunt, Dinah Little (Golda Rosheuvel), who reluctantly agrees to take Charlie in. Dinah is an embittered woman whose small farm is failing.

Dinah lives in the village of Mugford, which is well known for its annual pumpkin competition. Charlie sees this as a way of winning the prize money to go in search of her mother. Charlie apparently has magic powers that helps her understand plants and so, she grows Peter, a pumpkin, in order to enter the competition. When Charlie’s mother Polly (Kathryn Drysdale) unexpectedly turns up, she throws all of Charlie’s and her sister Dinah’s plans into disarray.

Abandonment of a child; The need to belong; Loss and Grief.

There is some violence in this movie, including:

• A couple of scenes refer to horror movies and while it is unlikely children will understand the intent of the humour behind either of the scenes, as they are aimed at the parents, the references are to movies which are not for children.
  • The first of which is a scene of a pumpkin being watered under a shower. The farmer closes a curtain around it and a hooded figure appears with a knife in hand. A stabbing sound is heard as the pumpkin is stabbed multiples times. An orange blood-like substance flows away (Psycho style).
  • The other scene is one of a man in bed who wakes up to feel something odd in his bed. He throws back the covers to find a decapitated pumpkin with a wide-open mouth and large ‘teeth’ (similar to a scene in The Godfather).

Other violence includes:

• Charlie throws her school bag at a bus and is chased by a policeman.
• A tractor tyre runs over a man’s foot.
• Charlie throws a ball at a boy’s head.
• One of the boys tells Charlie that her mother just didn’t want her. Charlie attacks the boy, punching and beating him up.
• Charlie is chased by the neighbouring Lord and Lady of the manor, after requesting their advice on how to grow pumpkins.
• Charlie tries to destroy laboratory equipment because she believes it is hurting the pumpkins growing inside. One of the lab assistants grabs her roughly to remove her from the lab.
• Dinah threatens a man with a rifle.
• Charlie is chased by bees when she disturbs a beehive and is stung by them.
• A man is caught in the act of trying to destroy a pumpkin. A policeman grabs him roughly by the neck and restrains him.

Material that may scare or disturb children

In addition to the above-mentioned violent scenes, there are some scenes in this movie that could scare or disturb children under the age of five, including the following:

• Charlie appears in a Halloween costume with a pumpkin head which makes Dinah’s friend Arlo jump.
• The Halloween scenes display some scary costumes, including skeletons, etc.

In addition to the above-mentioned violent scenes and scary visual images, there are some scenes in this movie that could scare or disturb children aged five to eight, including the following:

• Charlie’s arms scale over sometimes.
• Charlie sprays weed killer over her aunt’s plants. It causes her to cough violently and collapse.
• Dinah and Charlie go to a lion park with Arlo to collect lion manure. When Dinah realises that the lions are loose, they run to the car. A large male lion jumps on the car and roars at them.
• On the night that the man wakes up to find a pumpkin in his bed, thunder and lightning occurs to set a scary scene. The man screams when he finds the pumpkin.

In addition to the above-mentioned violent scenes, there are some scenes in this movie that could scare or disturb children aged eight to thirteen, including the following:

• Dinah talks about how her parents were killed by the stress of running the farm.
• Polly appears on the scene with a man friend and wants to take Charlie away. At first Charlie agrees to go with them to the US. When she realises Polly only did it for money, Charlie wants to return to Dinah. Polly says she was never good at ‘the nurturing thing’, which is why she ran away from Charlie.

• Nothing further noted.

Product placement

• None noted.

Sexual references

There are some sexual references in this movie, including:

• Arlo asks Dinah if Charlie is his daughter. Dinah replies, “We snogged once at a school disco”, to which Arlo responds, “But what a snogger”.
• A shopkeeper asks mistakenly if Dinah has gone orgasmic (meaning to say organic).

Nudity and sexual activity

• None noted.

Use of substances

There is some use of substances in this movie, including:

• Polly and Gaz celebrate with a bottle of champagne.

Coarse language

There is some coarse language in this movie, including:

• Oh my God
• Pooh
• Wee
• Name calling, such as:
  • Imbecile
  • Brat
  • Big fat lazy backside.

In a nutshell

Grow is a British family movie which has themes of abandonment, loss and grief, and the need to belong. It also has some light comic relief with some whimsical moments and the joy of finding a new purpose in life. The themes make it unsuitable for young children and is best suited to families with older children and teens.

The main messages from this movie are to embrace change and that love comes from unexpected places.

Values in this movie that parents may wish to reinforce with their children include:

• Love of nature and gardening
• One person can make a huge difference to another’s life.
• The importance of family
• Determination
• Resilience.

This movie could also give parents the opportunity to discuss with their children attitudes and behaviours, and their real-life consequences, such as:

• Charlie obviously has a lot of issues having been abandoned by her mother. At the start of the movie, she is portrayed as rebellious and feisty. She steals a packet of pumpkin seeds, which is unaddressed. Living on the farm and being close to nature is therapeutic for Charlie and gives her a new purpose in life. Parents could talk about why some children act out in anti-social ways.
• Aunt Dinah is a miserable, embittered woman. Having taken Charlie in reluctantly, Dinah finds herself warming to the child. Charlie eventually brings great joy to her Aunt who also finds a new purpose in life.
• Parents could talk about why some mothers might abandon their babies. Sometimes it can be the very difficult circumstances they find themselves in or it can just be purely selfish reasons, as in the case of Polly. Children might struggle to understand why a mother would leave her child for no good reason.