Four stars. Rated PG, for dramatic intensity
By Derrick Bang
This lovingly mounted, deeply moving Australian drama brought back memories of The Snow Goose.
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| When Mike (Finn Little) is accompanied by his three foundling friends during a visit to the nearby village, folks can't help staring. (Wouldn't you?) |
I was 15 when director Patrick Garland’s poignant adaptation of Paul Gallico’s 1941 novella aired as a Hallmark Hall of Fame special in November 1971; the final scenes left me shattered for weeks. Seeing it again, decades later — much better able to understand the Dunkirk element — I was moved anew, identifying more this time with Richard Harris’ Philip Rhayader, than with young Jenny Agutter’s Fritha.
All this came tumbling back while enjoying director Shawn Seet’s equally sensitive handling of Colin Thiele’s 1963 children’s book. Storm Boy — both the original story, and this beautifully structured film — has the magical, slightly other-worldly atmosphere of a fairy tale, while at the same time being grounded in real-world disputes as relevant today, as they were half a century ago.
Seet and scripter Justin Monjo have added a framing device, to bring the story into the modern era; this liberty doesn’t detract at all from Thiele’s original narrative, and in fact serves as a reminder that the battle between industry and environment — even now — too frequently favors the former.
Successful retired businessman Michael Kingley (Geoffrey Rush) has returned briefly as a senior director on his company’s board, for a meeting that will determine whether a mining company can base its operation in Western Australia’s Pilbara. The vote seems a foregone conclusion, much to the dismay of Michael’s environmentally impassioned 17-year-old granddaughter, Maddy (Morgana Davies).
But then, an odd — almost supernatural — event: A sudden, massive storm shatters one of the board room windows, delaying the vote by a day. Michael returns to the house he’s temporarily sharing with Maddy’s family; perhaps more eerily, he briefly sees a trio of pelicans that … well … aren’t there. Sensing his unease, Maddy questions him: Michael obligingly relates the story of his quite unusual childhood.
And, thus, we’re transported back to the late 1950s, where cinematographer Bruce Young so gorgeously captures the sweeping majesty and isolation of South Australia’s Coorong, and its 90-Mile Beach: a coastal wilderness where young Mike (11-year-old Finn Little, in a winning feature debut) lives in a rustic bungalow with his reclusive father, known as Hideaway Tom (Jai Courtney). He keeps them in supplies by catching fish and selling them in the nearby village; young Mike — whom everybody calls “Storm Boy” — helps as best he can.
Schooling is limited to reading aloud from William Golding’s Lord of the Flies, with Mike’s father gently correcting pronunciation errors.
