Nim's Island

[KLAXXON]

A feisty young girl called Nim (ABIGAIL BRESLIN) lives on a wild tropical island with her father and her best friends Silkie the seal, the crazy iguana Fred and Galileo the plucky pelican! Inspired by ancient legends and her favourite books penned by the reclusive author Alexandra Rover (JODIE FOSTER), Nim leads a wild and exciting life. When Nim’s father is lost at sea and her island paradise is thrown into peril, Nim reaches out to book hero, Alex Rover (GERARD BUTLER) for help.





While we await the first truly great film of 2008, ("Iron Man"? "Indy"? "Zombie Strippers"?), parents can be thankful for the little PG-rated gems that have been arriving monthly. Add "Nim's Island" to a collection of recent enjoyable family-friendly fare that includes "The Spiderwick Chronicles," "Horton Hears a Who," and "National Treasure 2."

There had to be a reason that three very talented actors--Jodie Foster, Gerard Butler, and Abigail Breslin--would join up with novice directors (and married couple) Jennifer Flackett and Mark Levin to make a live action adventure film aimed squarely at grade school kids.

As it turns out, the all-star cast's instincts were correct. This endearing film, while not perfect or truly memorable in any significant way, is just what you would want from a film that features a pre-teen heroine who is wet behind her ears but wise beyond her years.

As played by Breslin, ("Little Miss Sunshine"), Nim is a winsome, self-confident daughter of a marine biologist Dad (Butler), who not only knows a thing or two about living on a deserted volcanic island but calls as house pets a sea lion and a very animated lizard.

When Dad gets lost at sea, to Nim's rescue comes one of her favorite authors, the agoraphobic adventure novelist Alexandra Rover (Foster). Butler is not only a loving Dad, but seen through the eyes of both Nim and Alexandra, he's also the dashing fictional hero that pops in and out of the story to either enchant Nim or act as Alexandra's alter ego. Foster rarely displays her comedic gifts. In fact, this may be her first true screwball comedy role as an adult and it's a treasure.

Part real adventure drama and part fantasy, the film requires the imagination of a child to see beyond the implausibility and accept the detailed tropical environs as worthy enough grounding to keep things simultaneously tense and light. Breslin, as we have come to expect, is naturally sweet, strong, creative and vulnerable.

If you have an eight-year-old child, "Nim's Island" is the kind of film you won't be sorry you shared with him or especially her, and if you don't have a youngster to take with you, you'll wish you did.






Being trapped in tight spaces with the fascinating Jodie Foster has become a professional hazard lately. Foster had her femme-in-peril thriller phase with Panic Room and Flightplan, queasily got her own back in The Brave One, and now, in what's billed as a rare comic turn, she pops up in Nim's Island as Alexandra Rover, a highly strung agoraphobic novelist who hasn't left her apartment in 16 weeks.

   
Abigail Breslin and Jodie Foster in Nim's Island
There's no such thing as a comfort zone in Foster's performances, comic or otherwise: she's almost too good here, making Alexandra such an exhausting bag of neuroses that the movie hardly knows what to do with her.

Perhaps mercifully, it's not her film. Little Miss Sunshine?'s Abigail Breslin is Nim, a young damsel left to fend for herself on a Pacific island when her marine biologist dad (Gerard Butler) gets shipwrecked.

At first it's all parties with sea lions and home-alone fun, but when daddy fails to come back, Nim emails Alexandra, author of her favourite adventure novels, for help. Foster braves the outside world and travels hysterically across half of it, but for no very clear reason.

As it turns out, Nim is essentially Macaulay Culkin in drag, successfully repelling a whole army of vulgar Australian tourists with the help of some chummy lizards. What possible assistance could a constantly vomiting, obsessive-compulsive writer provide in such surroundings?

advertisementFor a film besotted with its adventure yarns, this is curiously uninterested in sound storytelling - the kind that might make Foster's arrival on the island, or even Butler's return, an urgent necessity. Instead, since Nim's mother drowned when she was a baby, forging a new family unit is the underlying agenda.

The movie gets plain silly, but at least it's lively, and young girls will enjoy Nim's lifestyle in her eco-friendly and frolic-packed tropical paradise.



Abigail Breslin ...  Nim Rusoe
Jodie Foster ...  Alexandra Rover
Gerard Butler ...  Jack Rusoe / Alex Rover
Michael Carman ...  Captain
Mark Brady ...  Purser
Anthony Simcoe ...  First Mate
Christopher Baker ...  Ensign
Peter Callan ...  Edmund's Father
Rhonda Doyle ...  Edmund's Mother
Russell Butler ...  Old Fisherman
Colin Gibson ...  Cruise Director
Bryan Probets ...  Australian Tourist #1
Andrew Nason ...  Australian Tourist #1
Dorothy Thorsen ...  Blue-Haired Woman
Penny Everingham ...  Older Woman Tourist



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