'Nim's Island': 'Cast Away' for Kids

By Martha Brockenbrough
MSN Cinemama

"Nim's Island" is one of the more interesting kids' movies to come out in a while. But that doesn't mean it's going to be a huge hit with audiences.

It takes three big situations -- a girl stranded on a tropical island, a man lost at sea and a neurotic writer who can't leave her home -- and weaves them together into ... a psychological drama with limited character interaction until the movie's end.

This makes "Nim's Island" sort of like "Cast Away" for the elementary school set.

Variety Review: Dialogue, Situations Strand 'Nim's Island'

Where Tom Hanks had his volleyball, Abigail Breslin's Nim has assorted animals acting as her foils on-screen. Jodie Foster, who plays the agoraphobic writer, interacts mostly with the heroic character she invented for her best-selling books. The father (Gerard Butler) doesn't even have that. He has a jar of plankton, a helpful pelican, and nothing else but the wide and indifferent sea.

The movie asks a central question: Will the characters have the courage to survive? This is actually a brave choice for kids' movies, which tend to put visual spectacle on a higher plane than the psychological. Even if it doesn't immediately become a kids' favorite, it's worth watching simply for the craft it demands of its actors.

When the story begins, Nim and her father have set up housekeeping on an island in the South Pacific after the death of her mother in an accident involving an unscrupulous tourist ship and a whale. Nim is (in the cheesiest line of the movie) "island-schooled." She eats grubs and learns physics from falling fish while her father seeks new varieties of microscopic life forms.

He's dying to find one he can name after Nim, and when the opportunity arises, he reluctantly leaves her alone on the island. Nim wants to stay behind to watch sea turtle eggs hatch and persuades her dad she's old enough to look after herself.

Of course, a storm attacks just as he's jarred the elusive protozoan, leaving him to enact a version of "young man and the sea" for the rest of the film.

Enter Foster as Alex Rover, a novelist on a tight deadline. She sends e-mail to Nim's dad, which Nim reads because she's been asked to manage his mail. Rover happens to be Nim's favorite novelist, so Nim is only too delighted to help him -- she doesn't know Rover is a woman -- research how a volcano really looks from the lip of its crater.

Nim hurts her knee coming down from the volcano, and Alex feels responsible, especially when she learns Nim is an 11-year-old living alone. Can Alex help Nim? Can Nim keep her island safe from the unscrupulous tourists who not only killed her mother, but also have an appetite for her real estate? And will Nim's father ever make it back alive?

With actors as good as Breslin and Foster, these are questions we care about -- even more than the unlikely volcanic eruptions they share screen time with.

What's in It for Kids

Kids will envy Nim's life and will enjoy imagining themselves in her shoes. Who wouldn't want a giant sea lion and hissing lizard for companions? Who wouldn't want to live in an architecturally designed cabin in the jungle eating fruits, vegetables and delicious protein-filled mealworms?

Well, fine -- the worms are gross. Beyond that, though, Nim has it made. She plays beach soccer and travels through the jungle on a zip-line. She's allowed to use the machete.

In short, it's a fantasy life.

"Nim's Island" takes the fantasy element one step further and gives her animal friends intelligence and utility. They help her defend her beach, summoning noxious farts and flying through the air at Nim's behest. One even helps her stranded dad.

It's this sort of thing that makes "Nim's Island" more of a kids' movie than an adult one. The directors, Jennifer Flackett and Mark Levin, weren't too hung up on making things realistic. A volcanic eruption scene, for example, which does not appear in Wendy Orr's original novel, is particularly unrealistic.

Speaking of the book, kids who've read it will notice some plot changes. Nim and her dad have fewer interactions when he's on the boat, which jacks up the tension level significantly. Nim does not make a pair of coconut rafts that figure so heavily in the plot of the book. Her leg infection is downplayed significantly. It'd be fun to talk with kids about why the directors made those changes and whether they improve or hurt the movie.

Kids who are between the ages of 8 and 11 will enjoy "Nim's Island" most. Much older kids are likely to be bored, and younger ones could be a bit confused -- especially by the scenes where Foster talks to a person who isn't there.

What's in It for Grown-ups

"Nim's Island" gives grown-ups two types of pleasure. First, it's nice to take your kids to a movie that isn't overly scary and that doesn't rely on sarcastic banter between kids and adults. This gives the film a certain freshness that's been lacking in the animation-heavy family movie category of late.

Then, there is the acting. Breslin shows her turn in "Little Miss Sunshine" was no fluke. The kid can act, even when she doesn't have human characters as her foils.

Foster, as always, is magnificent. Though she pumps up the volume of tics with her reclusive author Alex Rover, it's fun to watch her in the role. Rover hasn't left her San Francisco apartment in weeks. She's too afraid.

The fear Foster shows here is familiar to those who loved her in "The Silence of the Lambs" (among other scary movies). But she somehow tweaks it so that it's funny without being unbelievable. And in the scene where she realizes Nim is a child, her facial expression is so pure it's breathtaking.

Butler is less impressive in dual roles as Nim's father, Jack, and Alex Rover the fictional hero. Perhaps this is anyone's fate, though, who shares the screen with Foster.

It was a clever notion casting him in both roles, reminiscent of the parts Jason Isaacs played in the 2003 version of "Peter Pan" directed by P.J. Hogan. It worked better in that movie, though, in terms of acting and emotional punch. In "Nim's Island," there's a good chance the casting might confuse really young kids watching it, but he's styled differently enough that they also might not notice.

In all, it's a nice movie for families to enjoy together, even if afterward you have to explain to your kids why they don't get to play with the machete, too.

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Martha Brockenbrough is author of "It Could Happen to You: Diary of a Pregnancy and Beyond." She's also founder of SPOGG, the Society for the Promotion of Good Grammar. She writes a fun-with-kids column for Cranium.com, as well as an educational humor column for Encarta. Check out her Web site.

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