Storm Boy, directed by Shawn Seet is the second film adaptation of Colin Thiele’s novel of the same name. Starring Geoffrey Rush, the story is told using flashbacks to Michael Kingley’s childhood by the beach.
We see the young Michael (Finn Little) and his melancholy father, Tom (Jai Courtney) living a secluded life on 90 mile beach. Together they lived in isolation from the world, until, as Rush recalls to his granddaughter (Morgana Davies), the world came to him. After a commotion caused by a pair of hunters – serving as an extremely unsubtle evil plot device – Michael and Fingerbone Bill (Trevor Jamieson) come across a trio of pelican chicks, whose mother had just been shot. We then spend the bulk of the film watching Michael and his seemingly reluctant father raise the chicks into adult birds with no small amount of anthropomorphism – we see the birds playing soccer, sliding down sand dunes, etc.
I won’t spoil the rest of the story. The plot is extremely predictable – even if you don’t know the original story. Subtlety is widely out the window in this adaptation -from start to finish each scene is painfully average in scope and execution. Part of the film’s failure is in its split from the novel. The extra layer of story in the form of the adult Michael Kingley, now a successful businessman, only serves to diminish both the original story and itself, seeing as it’s much harder to tell two stories than it is to tell one, classic story. Despite this, it does have some heartwarming moments – but only those that can be expected from the vast majority of kids’ films – dead mother, cuddly animals.
Storm Boy fails to provide a worthy re-telling of the Australian classic, and in its mediocrity, will most certainly not stand the test of time.
Bill (14)