“Eye of the Dolphin,” occasionally as graceful as its namesake's gliding through the water, occasionally as irritating as its high-pitched squeak, is like “Flipper” meets “Thirteen,” with a quality markedly between the two. Vacillating between genuine and overwrought, heartfelt and hollow, there is a lot to like in this movie, and also a lot to dislike.

The film opens with Alyssa (played by “Lizzie McGuire” veteran and relative newcomer Carly Schroeder), a troubled (and apparently recently orphaned) 14-year-old with an attitude problem, being suspended from school due to the latest in a string of marijuana infractions. Her grandmother (Katherine Ross, ruefully underused in the role), clearly exasperated at having to deal with this problem child alone, reveals that her supposedly dead father is alive, conveniently studying dolphins in the Bahamas. And thus, enter the father: Dr. James Hawk (occasionally overacted by Adrian Dunbar), a Robin Hood researcher of marine mammals, backed up by his love interest/research assistant Tamika (played with ethereal charm by Christine Adams) and her father, the earnest, sagacious Daniel (George Harris). Just as the eye-shadowed Alyssa shows up, her father's research (which seems to consist exclusively of intently staring at a computer screen while wearing headphones, and sometimes playing tic-tac-toe with a dolphin) is threatened by the specter of tourism, and the cheery villain Glinton (played with aplomb by Jane Lynch), shows up to dismiss Dr. Hawk's entire enterprise as junk science. The struggle between the bureaucracy of the town of Smith's Point and Dr. Hawk's 3-person scientific community serves as both the main conflict of the story, and the mere backdrop for Alyssa's tale of self-discovery. Ultimately, she finds a father in... her father, a much-needed calling in the dolphins, and a sense of belonging, the lack of which clearly led to her marijuana horrors.

Director Michael D. Sellers, whom you may remember from the 2003 vampire movie “Vlad,” nobly tries to steer this family drama on the straight and narrow, and succeeds... about half the time. Everything in the movie feels occasionally overblown, Carly Schroeder's teenage attitude sometimes too impatient, Katherine Ross's grandmotherly exasperation sometimes too helpless, Adrian Dunbar's defiant attitude sometimes too menacing beneath his blonde eyebrows. Notable exceptions to the rule are Jane Lynch, who manages to make every one of her scenes rather enjoyable, Christine Adams, whose modest, honest, soft-spoken performance commands more attention than any of the other escalating voices, and George Harris, whose avuncular musings never feel terribly out of place.

The dialog is sometimes implausible, laced with exposition and character development when it doesn't need to be, when what the characters do, rather than what they say, can do the talking. The movie does look good, however, and shows remarkable production value for something so under-the-radar. The underwater scenes, shot by an alum of the “Pirates of the Caribbean” series, are spectacular, and lend the movie much of its credibility, simultaneously fantastical and familiar, floating and swooping through undersea landscapes, and making us forgive any silliness to follow in the upcoming above-ground scene.

Ultimately, this movie exists in the space between ABC Family movie-of-the-week and big-league commercial cinema, and its overall impact reflects that. Despite the PG-13 rating, this film is very family friendly, and its message of being true to yourself and what you believe in is not lost, despite the fact that the film is rarely true to itself.