watching movies one cup at a time

Fun family movie with excellent acting. Jodie Foster doesn’t disappoint as agoraphobic writer Alex Rover. And Abigail Breslin wins us over to her island girl, Nim. There’s not much to this one, it’s pretty simple. Girl lives on an island with her dad, loves Alex Rover adventure books, Dad gets lost at sea, Alex Rover makes contact with Nim looking for research on volcanoes, winds up befriending her and when Nim begs for help, Alex Ross goes against her fear of everything and makes it to the very remote island. Dad returns, all is well.

The only thing I didn’t like was I felt the ending was too rushed. Alex Ross spends a big chunk of the movie trying to get to this island, and when she finally does, the movie is basically over. We get to see her on the island for maybe 10 minutes. And Nim has already driven out the tourists herself and her dad finds his way back soon after she arrives. So she really didn’t serve any purpose out there, but next thing we know, right away we flash-forward and her and the dad are in a relationship and a new family unit is created. Just too much too fast. There just wasn’t time in this movie to go deeper into the relationship between Alex Rover and Nim and her dad and how it grew. The movie could have been twice as long to tell the complete story. But we’ll just have to fill in the rest ourselves.

Still, that wasn’t a deal breaker. It was still an enjoyable experience for a family movie and it’s nice to see Jodie Foster doing something lighthearted.