Nim’s Island
“Come on. Touch the world.”
“I don’t wanna touch the world. It’s … not sanitary!”
Sometimes I should listen less to Mark Kermode lol. His review really put me off this movie, and I was already averse to watching it despite the presence of Jodie Foster, ‘cos I’m not really crazy for Abigail Breslin (though I’m of course looking forward to the next American Girl movie – for which this bodes well). Well, all the apprehension was completely swept away by the opening, music, animation, voiceover, it’s just a wonderful entry to the story.
Anyway – Kermode was wrong about Jodie not being able to do comedy, at least that’s my opinion, though I did believe him at the time he said it, since she really hasn’t done it in a while. The very first moment with her here made me laugh loud and I barely stopped for the rest of the movie – I love the, “Ungh! So much mail!” moment, it’s like the comic inversion of The Brave One, I should’ve really known that Jodie wouldn’t choose to do a movie with a less than fascinating character. I actually cried laughing over the quote up top, lol. Kermode was also wrong (again, my opinion) about the end of the movie – that is, he was right about the details but he made it sound way more abrupt and anti-climactic than it really is – I personally found it startlingly beautiful how it wrapped up in the end.
In short, while it’s not quite this year’s Last Mimzy or Bridge to Terabithia, it’s certainly encouraging. Breslin is fantastic, Foster hilarious, Patrick Doyle’s music, and the themes of isolation and reality not living up to (or at least, not matching) fantasy etc are tremendously poignant, at least, they definitely struck me that way.