Protecting the Island

Dum, dum, duuuummm - the ominous-sounding notes commencing the live action Disney film Swiss Family Robinson, sounds forever engrained in my memory. That lone island with its fantastic houses was the playground of my childhood, and tropical animals and pirates populated my imagination. One of the most successful family films ever made, this film is the classic adventure tale and it embodies the honest type of movie children should grow up watching.

Now, picture this golden oldie with cruisers instead of pirates, and you have the movie Nim’s Island. It tells the story of young Nim (Abigail Breslin) who lives on an uncharted island with her father, Jack Rusoe (Gerard Butler, who captures the ‘Crusoe’ hidden in the character’s name). When Jack gets lost at sea and her island is “invaded”, Nim calls on her hero, Alex Rover. Unbeknowst to her, however, Alex Rover is not the swashbuckling adventurer she imagines, but reclusive and germophobic writer Alexandra Rover (a hilarious Jodie Foster) from San Francisco.

It’s difficult to believe that the popular “adventure tale” could be well-done after having been used by so many screenwriters and novelists, yet Nim’s Island manages to delight the viewer once more with filthy buccaneers and life-or-death journeys. At once engaging and familiar, the film charmed me with its vividly humorous presentation of this basic storyline.

Though the film ranges from flying geckos to airport checks, it had amazingly strong unity. After all, when the main characters have approximately 5 minutes of screen time all together, and the bulk of the film is spent watching them fight their struggles alone, it would have been easy for the script to fray around the edges. Instead, their individual struggles seem, in a strange way, to draw the characters closer together. We have here a pleasing reversal of Swiss Family Robinson; instead of people bonding by working in the same fight, they bond by fighting to get to each other.

I must also note that it was genius to have Gerard Butler play the adventurer Alex Rover in addition to Nim’s father. Thus viewers see that the two women of the tale are united by the same image of a person, and though they are not conscious of it, that person actually exists in Nim’s dad. So it’s not quite so hard to believe that Nim can accept that her hero wasn’t what she expected and that Alexandra falls for Jack pretty quickly. After all, Nim’s hero didn’t really die, he showed up again when her dad returned. In the same way Alexandra can cope without her story and easily come to love Jack because, in a wonderfully unrealistic way, she already knows him.

As I sat on my couch downstairs and listened to my younger siblings giggle and roar with laughter, I felt that deeply satisfying feeling that arises when those you love watch something decent, something basically good. Their laughs were the hearty kind, brought on by sheer enjoyment of a classic tale, not the shallow ones brought on by the cheap tricks of most filmmakers today. Nim's Island preserved not only the integrity of the classic adventure tale but also the ideas about life which that story stands for and the innocent joy of the children who watch it. So for a night of family relaxation and togetherness, keeping the necessary guns and provisions close, I highly recommend Nim’s Island.