"Nim's Island" is a great family movie based on the book by Australian author, Wendy Orr. Directed by husband-and-wife film-producers, Jennifer Flackett and Mark Levin, it has been very aptly described as "Robinson Crusoe" meets "Home Alone".
Starring the delightful young actress, Abigail Breslin (from "Little Miss Sunshine" fame) as the feisty 11-year-old Nim, the movie is set on a secret tropical island in the South Pacific (its true location being off the coast of Queensland, Australia).
Nim and her father, Jack Rusoe (played by Gerard Butler) have lived alone on this island for as long as she can remember. Jack is an ocean scientist, as was her mother, who lost her life at sea.
Living an idyllic lifestyle in this island hide-away, Nim has developed some special relationships with ocean creatures including a sea lion called Selkie, a lizard called Fred, a turtle called Chica and a pelican (called Galileo), along with others.
When her father decides he's going out to sea for two nights to search for an elusive organism, Nim manages to convince him she will be fine staying on her own, as some baby turtles are about to be born and need her assistance.
No sooner has he left than an email arrives for him from Alex Rover, whom Nim believes to be the world's greatest adventurer, and the subject of her favourite book series. In actual fact though, Alex is Alexandra, a reclusive, neurotic female writer with several phobias, who lives in a San Francisco apartment. She is having trouble conjuring up her latest adventure title about her heroic alter-ego and is doing research into volcanoes. Finding a National Geographic article about living in the shadow of a volcano - written by Nim's father - she contacts him to ask if he can help her. Star-struck Nim replies with great excitement that she's sure Jack will be glad to help when he gets back from his trip.
In the meantime Jack's boat is struck by a tropical monsoon that night and is broken up, springing a serious leak. Nim is awoken by the ferocious storm, which wreaks havoc on the tree- house in which they dwell.
Next morning she does her best to clean up and has further email communications with Alex, who, believing her to be Jack's assistant, is unperturbed when she volunteers to go and have a close look at the dormant volcano atop the island's mountain.
When she falls off the side of the mountain and suffers a severe cut to her leg, she confides in and calls upon help from her hero, accidentally referring to Jack as "Dad". Alex now realizes that she is communicating with a child - who has done herself a potentially serious injury, carrying out a mission on her behalf. Worst of all, she is alone on the island.
Thus begins an intense battle between herself and her alter-ego conscience and motivator (also played by Gerard Butler), who eventually convinces her to fight her severe case of agoraphobia and set out on a journey to the unknown island where Nim is in need of help.
This is particularly significant as she can't even bring herself to go as far as the letterbox to collect her mail and hasn't been outside her apartment for 16 weeks. A particularly humorous scene is where she is observed by the taxi driver, struggling physically with her unseen alter-ego as he literally forces her out the door.
Thus follows a series of quite comical scenes as she takes various stages of her epic journey to find Nim's island, based solely on Nim's information of its map co-ordinates.
Jodie Foster is brilliant as always, and portrays an extremely fragile and vulnerable individual who has been living a life that could not be more different to that of the gallant hero portrayed in her best-selling books. Yet, in responding to Nim's plight, and fighting against such enormous mental issues, she exemplifies the inspirational courage of everyday heroes. Furthermore, she becomes quite literally the hero of her own story.
Meanwhile, Jack, still marooned at sea, receives help from an unexpected quarter when Galileo the pelican provides him with fish to eat, and even brings his tool bag from the island.
Nim herself, as well as being injured, is becoming increasingly anxious about the fact that she cannot contact her father by phone and fears for his safety. Then, from her lookout she sees some buccaneers arrive on the island and overhears their plans to take it over. When they leave she hatches her own plans to frighten them off when they return.
A couple of days later they arrive with a holiday cruise group, who take over the place with their partying and frivolity. Apart from a young boy who discovers her just as they are about to leave, they are totally unaware of Nim's presence - and the boy's parents refuse to accept his fantastic story about a girl living alone on the island.
Even before they are ashore, she puts into action the first and mildest of her plots to deter them. The sea lion is sent to create a big stink in the air around their boat with its gaseous emissions. Once they arrive, there are several more pranks involving flying lizards, and culminating in her setting fire to the top of the mountain, so that the people are convinced the volcano is erupting.
The tour group has no sooner fled from the island than there is another ferocious storm, during which the helicopter in which Alex is taking another stage of her journey, lands on their deck. When they refuse to believe her story about a girl being alone on the nearby island, she steals the lifeboat and rows to the island herself.
Nim runs to meet the boat and ends up saving Alex's life when she falls into the water and nearly drowns. So she is far from impressed when she discovers that the all-conquering male hero, upon whom she had pinned her hopes, turns out to be simply an unimpressive female writer who needed to be rescued herself. She lets her know in no uncertain terms that she is unwelcome and orders her to leave immediately.
Again there is a stand-off between Alex and her alter-ego, who then declares she can no longer use him as a crutch and that he's leaving her to fight her own battles. So she seeks out Nim again, who eventually accepts her presence, even confiding in her tearfully next morning that she is convinced her father must be dead, or else he would have been back by then. Alex then assures her that she will be there for her, whatever her father's fate is.
At this point they catch sight of Jack returning on a makeshift boat that is basically just a raft.
There is a heart-warming reunion between father and daughter. The bemused Jack is then introduced to Alex, whom he had also believed to be a hunky male hero. Nim draws the movie to its conclusion with the indication that the future of the ocean scientist and the writer were henceforth united in the island Paradise.
I especially enjoyed the way the three distinct parts of the overall story were woven together, portraying three individual characters who were each heroes in their own rights. One sub-plot was involved with the peril Jack faced at sea and his valiant determination to get back to Nim. The second involved Nim's own fight for their idyllic island paradise which was under threat while he was gone. Then the third sub-plot involved the dual characters of Alex the adventurer and Alexandra his creator working together to serve the double purpose of coming to the aid of Nim - while at the same time conquering the writer's own phobias.
It's a super, magical adventure story that has a great deal of humour as well - along with some superb scenery and delightful characters - not the least of them the animals that feature in it. I also very much enjoyed the way it incorporated such modern technology as computers and emails into a good wholesome old-fashioned adventure story about life on a secret island.
I am sure this movie will have wide appeal. Certainly our little boy, who's not quite seven, was captivated by it, even though his usual strong preference is for animated movies. My husband and I both enjoyed it immensely too - and a grandmother I spoke to through the week, who had just taken her grandkids to see it, also said it was very good. I would highly recommend it. I will certainly want to get a copy of it on DVD when it's available - but am glad we saw it on the big screen first.