Have you ever wondered what the recipe for a good fantasy and adventure movie is? Or at least what the basic ingredients are? Let’s see: a beautiful, secret tropical island which seems like it was inhabited by romantic mysterious pirates until not long ago and a fantasy hero who is ready to throw himself into any kind of adventure.

When you add an 11-year-old girl and an agoraphobic female writer, who both will have to face their fears in the realms where reality is separated from fantasy by a thin, blurry line, you will obtain not only a touching fantasy, but also an unexpected kind of comedy.

And this is the essence of “Nim’s Island.” Unlike other fantasy movies that have been released lately, like “The Golden Compass,” the adventures of Nim are a refreshing mix of reality and fantasy and proof that one can be the hero of his/her own story.

The plot of the movie, based on the homonymous novel of Australian writer Wendy Orr, is quite simple, but captivating.

Nim (Abigail Breslin) is living with her dad, the scientist Jack Rusoe (Gerard Butler) on a tropical, idyllic island, which perfectly combines the feeling of a lost paradise with the latest advancements in technology. Although Jack has chosen to dedicate his life to science and his daughter, after the death of his wife, he is not a reclusive, eccentric scientist, but rather a man passionate about his work.

Nim is living in this day dream paradise surrounded by her pet friends, Selky the sea lion, Galileo the pelican, Fred the lizard and Chica the sea turtle, reading endless novels about here favorite character, Alex Rover, a novel hero heavily inspired from the Indiana Jones movies.

Nim is convinced that Alex Rover is not just fiction, but a real flesh-and-bones person and when her dad goes missing after leaving on a three-day trip to study plankton, the girl asks for Rover’s help.

As we have already guessed, Alex Rover is just a fictional character, created by the imagination of …the author Alex Rover. Meet Alex Rover (Jodie Foster), a female author, neurotic, agoraphobic, who is a afraid to leave San Francisco, the city she lives in.

But the fictional character Alex Rover (played also by Gerard Butler) is as real for her as for Nim and she decides to face her fears and phobias and help the little girl, lost on that faraway island.

In accordance with Murphy’s law, which says that when there is a possibility for something to go bad, it actually will go bad, Alex’s trip to the island where Nim lives turns into a nightmare, not only because of the distance but also because the writer is not able to cope with the real world.

Her alter ego is always there for her though, encouraging her with remarks that, personally, reminded me of the relationship between Jane and Jack in the famous “Romancing the Stone.”

Alex Rover finally reaches Nim’s island but I will not reveal what happens from here on.

“Nim’s Island” does not ultimately excel in any particular way but the story itself is simple and pretty. Casting Jodie Foster as the neurotic author, although at first glance an uninspired move, is actually one of the film’s strengths.

Foster seems to overdo it sometimes and there are several scenes where she looks completely unhappy with being where she is, but this only helps accentuate the phobias her character has to face.

If the relationship between Foster and Butler, or between author and creation, will please adult moviegoers, young Abigail Breslin and her plethora of animal friends on the island will certainly make kids happy.

Breslin’s talent in making a character like Nim credible, who could otherwise appear as not only improbable, but also fantastic, is the film’s strong point. The mélange of candor, naiveté and determination with which Breslin brings Nim to life onscreen makes the movie worth seeing, if only to witness the little girl’s talent.

Overall, “Nim’s Island” is recreational, perhaps exactly because it has no pretense to be more than it is: a fantasy about who we are and what we can do when necessity presses us.

Movie Type:Action/Adventure, Comedy, Science Fiction/Fantasy and Adaptation
MPAA Rating:PG for mild adventure action and brief language.
Running Time:1 hr. 36 min.
Directed By: Mark Levin, Jennifer Flackett
Cast: Jodie Foster, Abigail Breslin, Gerard Butler, Alphonso McAuley, Peter Callan
Released: April 4th, 2008 (wide)