Ben Is Back Stumbles Despite a Sensitive Turn by Julia Roberts

Julia Roberts has always been irrefutably likeable. I would dare even those who claim immunity to resist her most captivating feature: the way her eyes start smiling a few beats before her mouth has gotten the signal.

You see that smile only a few times in Ben Is Back, writer-director Peter Hedges' well-intentioned film about a young recovering heroin addict who sneaks away from his treatment center to spend Christmas with his family.