Nim's Island

Based on the book by Australian writer Wendy Orr, Nim’s Island is a story describing every kid’s dream.  Eleven-year-old Nim gets to live with her marine biologist father on their own secret tropical island in the middle of the South Pacific.  She doesn’t have to go to school; everything she needs to know she learns through books and observation of her natural surroundings.  Her devoted friends are also sometimes her teachers.  There’s Galileo the pelican, who can explain physics, and Selkie the sea lion who taught her how to swim.

When Jack, her father, becomes lost at sea during an expedition, Nim enlists the help of her favorite writer, Alexandra Rover, through e-mail.  However, Rover, a famous author of adventure novels, is not the exciting explorer Nim believes her to be.  Having kept herself locked up in her city apartment for months, she’s neurotic, germophobic, agoraphobic, and squeamish--not the stuff that describes heroes.  Her novel’s protagonist, Alex Rover, on the other hand, is a hunky, gritty Indiana Jones-like personality.  When he materializes in her home and pushes her to leave her reclusive existence and travel to the island to help Nim get her father back, she’s forced to listen to wise words.  “Be the hero of your own story,” he tells her.

Parents might have trouble suspending disbelief.  What many will focus on is Jack the widower who isolates himself and his daughter on a deserted island and becomes obsessed with studying nanoplankton.  Jack and Nim’s only contact with the outside world is through e-mail and a ship that comes every few months with supplies.  (By the way, how can they get Internet access so far out into the ocean?)  Nim is kept away from the rest of human society, so she isn’t learning socialization skills. Then her dad leaves her so he can indulge his scientific infatuation with minuscule organisms!  Isn’t this whole scenario a bit implausible, not to mention, creepy?

Sorry, folks, this film isn’t meant to convince you old sticks-in-the-muds.  Strange parenting style aside, it’s a great adventure.  Starring Abigail Breslin (Little Miss Sunshine, Kit Kittredge: An American Girl), Jodie Foster, and Gerard Butler (300, The Phantom of the Opera), Nim’s Island is a mix of Treasure Island and Home Alone.   When most adventure films nowadays are geared toward hormonal, pubescent boys, it’s refreshing to see a story that revolves around a girl who isn’t afraid to climb volcanoes or gather and eat mealworms for dinner.

Butler, who plays both Jack and the Alex Rover character, seems to fit better in the skin of Rover the explorer, a fun-loving Scotsman.  As Jack, he sounds as if he’s being forced to speak with an American accent.

It’s difficult to determine if Jodie Foster can do slapstick comedy.  Her exaggerated, madcap facial expressions and hammy behavior suggest she can, though they tend to make her character annoying at times; all that was missing were the hokey laugh tracks.  But this is a kids’ movie, and it succeeds because actors’ screwy mannerisms and cheesy lines always amuse those under 13. Viewers might expect Abigail Breslin to ham it up as well, but she’s one of those child stars who never overplays the sweetness, silliness, or clichéd resilience of children.

What’s truly amazing is the scenery in this movie, which was filmed on location on Hinchinbrook Island off the coast of Queensland, Australia.  The panoramas of ocean sunsets and lush rainforests will thrill those who have ever contemplated taking a tropical getaway.  Without the stunning cinematography, Nim’s adventure would have seemed less like one.