How to Kill Your Neighbor's Dog (2002)

A successful playwright, Peter McGowan (Kenneth Branagh), has hit a creative dry spell. After a string of box office flops, his new play is set to open, but the script isn't finished. With his producer and cast insisting the ten-year-old character in the play doesn't ring true, he is challenged to develop a "real" child and finds himself blocked. At home, his wife Melanie (Robin Wright Penn), would like a child of her own, but Peter isn't ready; he has his play to complete and his art itself to resurrect. When a recently separated woman and her young daughter Amy (Suzi Hofrichter) move next door, Melanie recognizes an opportunity to assuage her husband’s awkwardness with children. At the same time, Peter sees an opportunity to use the little girl in order to craft a "real" child for the play. He is eventually won over by Amy’s charm and his initial selfish intentions turn into genuine affection.