Nim's Island

Review By: Brian DePasquale
BrianDePasquale@TheCinemaSource.com

Walden Media’s Nim’s Island casts Abigail Breslin as the title character in the story about a girl who lives on a remote tropical island with her father. Nim’s dad is a marine biologist who submits his work to the main land to be published in magazines. Nim spends her days playing with her three animal friends Selke the Sea Lion, Fred the Bearded Dragon, and Galileio the Pelican. She also enjoys reading adventure novels about a mythic hero named Alex Rover and using her far-reaching imagination to combine the real world with fantasy.

Rover resides in the pages penned by Alexandra Rover (played by Jodie Foster), an agoraphobic author from San Francisco who desperately tries to live an unadventurous life. Battling a case of writer’s block, she wants her next novel to be more accurate and sends emails to Nim’s dad to fact check some information about volcanoes. Since dad is currently out on the open ocean for two days studying sea life, Nim reads and responds to Alexandra’s messages thinking she is talking to the adventure hero.

A storm comes and Nim’s dad gets lost at sea with a damaged boat. After getting injured on some rocks, Nim gets worried and asks her internet friend for help. Even though she is afraid of the prospect of leaving her own home (she can’t even get the mail from her mailbox), Alexandra decides she must help this young girl and make a trip to Nim’s island to save her.

No worries, friends. This review is not just a summary of what happens in the movie. The lengthy explanation of the film’s story is necessary because the construction of it’s plot is what ultimately dooms Nim’s Island. Small children, particularly girls around her age, will probably enjoy the interaction between Nim and the animals. If we have learned anything from Little Miss Sunshine and Definitely, Maybe, it’s that Abigail Breslin can carry a film on the shoulders of her own charisma. She has the smile that lights up a room and the personality to keep it lit far longer than it should. Unfortunately, Nim’s Island never gives us enough time to let her start the fire.

One of the major problems with the film’s structure is the distribution of character prominence. The title suggests we should be watching Nim’s story. In fact, Wendy Orr’s book from which the film is based offers readers far more time with the girl than the movie does. Most of Breslin’s screen time revolves around worrying about dad, hiding in her tropical sanctuary as high winds and torrential rain torture the terrain around her.

In fact, the story is as much about Rover as it is about Nim. This detail would work fine as two parallel narratives with similar thematic material that eventually collide in the end. The writers love ...