j* Movie Reviews 2019

Storm Boy (2018)

Look, it's an Australian classic, and it deserved a new version.

I'm more attached to the book than the previous film. This retelling does a great job of positioning the original story, of the correct time, as a piece of personal mythology and ecological learning. It felt a bit like it took the tale of Mr Percival, Mr Ponder and Mr Proud as an eco-dreamtime story. And that was nice. So the older, grown version of the pelican boy is now haunted by his bird-saving past in the face of a corporate decision with environmental impacts. We probably need one of these films.

I was blown away by the pelican business... still have much searching to do to find out how they did it - did they borrow real rescue pelican babies for the film? Multiple ones, or just the same three? Like did they grow up on set? How does one get permission for that? And how does one train pelicans... or was it all sheer good luck and working with what happened?

The kid and Jai Courtney both do great jobs. I was quite excited to discover the end of Geoffrey Rush's nose wobbles under high speed wind. Weird.

I cried, but less than I expected too. The story covers all the "hits" of the novel, with a few things missing or modified here and there. Fingerbone Bill seemed to be pretty well done to me, perhaps with interesting commentary about the parallels of controlled love in both cultures.

It's a good film, but I didn't find myself really leaning into it.

J* gives it 3 stars.