Nim's Island Review

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LauraBelle
South Elgin, IL

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Young Girls Learning to Be Their Own Hero

Movie Reviewer, a storyteller, A Big Giant Sap, mother of 2

Pros

Abigal Breslin, Jodie Foster, Adventure for Young Girls

APR

2008

I was a little confused watching the previews for Nim's Island. When the film was first being promoted, it was showing mostly Jodie Foster's role as an author and just a little of Abigail Breslin's role as a young girl stranded on a deserted island. A few weeks later, the previews switched to showing mostly Breslin's role and very little of Foster. It was as if they decided that young Breslin could carry the movie better than veteran actress Foster.

This all gave me some worries heading in to the theatre to see Nim's Island, but my fears were thrown to the side very quickly. I had brought my 11 year old daughter and her best friend and was glad I did. None of us were disappointed with this story built around the idea of "Be the hero of your own life story."

For her second movie in a row, Breslin is again playing a young girl learning about her mother. Nim's mother was a famous oceanographer that had died when Nim was very young. She's left with only pictures and the colorful stories her father tells her of her mother. Nim and her father, Jack Rusoe (Gerard Butler), a marine biologist, live on their own secluded island in the South Asiatic Sea while he does his research. Her whole life is on the island, from home schooling to the animals that become her friends and teach her other life lessons such as how to swim. Her most favorite thing to do, however, is to read the newest novels from adventure writer Alex Rover.

Jack regretfully leaves his daughter alone for two nights while he searches for the next plankton sample. Nim has a great time, until he doesn't come back as planned, and she's forced to fend for herself, which she does honorably, yet still trouble arises. Back in the United States, Alex Rover is writing the newest novel and needs the help of someone that has written about volcanos, Jack Rusoe. Alex emails Jack, and is answered by Nim, who answers that she is in trouble and needs help.

While Nim has grown on the island reading these adventure novels, she thinks Alex Rover is a tough male adventurer, when in reality Alex is the very agoraphobic Alexandra Rover, a writer. Goaded into leaving her home for the first time in months by the male adventurer that exists only in her imagination (Gerard Butler again, in a dual role), Alexandra packs up every can of Progresso soup she has in her home, along with several industrial strength-sized bottles of hand sanitizer, to travel to the South Asiatic Sea to help young Nim.

I'm used to seeing Foster in the heavily dramatic roles, not to mention her roles from when she started acting as a young girl herself. I wouldn't have thought she could pull off such a comedic role, but she did, and in the process didn't let us down with her usual dramatic flair either. Her worries over young Nim were so maternal, it brought out the same in me.

I'm thinking Breslin could learn a thing or two from Foster on how to progress from a brilliant child actress to successful adult actress, yet in Nim's Island, the roles were reversed, as Alexandra learned young Nim leads more adventure in her daily life than the fictional Alex Rover. My daughter and her friend learned a valuable lesson as well, watching a young girl their age being adventurous and intelligent, not to mention totally independent. They know that someday they, too, can be the hero of their own life story.