Adventure tale of island hoping; Cinema.Byline: TARA CAIN NIM'S ISLAND (U) STARS: Abigail Breslin, Jodie Foster Alicia Christian Foster (born November 19 1962), better known as Jodie Foster, is a two-time Academy Award-winning American actress, director, and producer. She has also won two Golden Globes, 3 BAFTA awards and a Screen Actors Guild Award, making her one of the few select , Gerard Butler. DIRECTORS: Jennifer Flackett, Mark Levin. IF any more proof were needed that 12-year-old Abigail Breslin, Oscar-nominated star of Little Miss Sunshine, is destined for superstardom, look no further than this film. The diminutive actress takes top billing for this island adventure above two-time Academy Award winner Jodie Foster and action man Gerard Butler (300, PS I Love You). Breslin fully merits the honour - she is absolutely luminous as a plucky pluck·y adj. pluck·i·er, pluck·i·est Having or showing courage and spirit in trying circumstances. See Synonyms at brave. pluck tyke stranded on her tropical home while her father is lost at sea. She doesn't strike a single false emotional note and finds a pleasing balance between gentle humour and the inevitable tears as solitude weighs heavily on her character's young shoulders. Foster is hilarious, playing an agoraphobic ag·o·ra·pho·bi·a n. An abnormal fear of open or public places. [Greek agor and compulsive obsessive who almost hyperventilates when she runs out of antiseptic hand wash. Nim (Breslin) lives on a lush South Pacific island with her scientist father Jack (Butler), who studies plankton plankton: see marine biology. plankton Marine and freshwater organisms that, because they are unable to move or are too small or too weak to swim against water currents, exist in a drifting, floating state. while the youngster amuses herself with her animal pals. But when Jack is lost at sea, Nim sends an ugent message to the writer of her favourite adventure books. "I can't be the hero of my own story," she writes. "I can't do this all by myself." Little does Nim know the writer is actually a recluse (Foster) who lives in San Francisco, far from the tropical locations that she writes about. Nim's Island defies expectations. Foster is highly amusing, trading verbal quips with Butler's fictional hero and Breslin tugs the heartstrings as her whippersnapper whip·per·snap·per n. A person regarded as insignificant and pretentious. [Alteration (influenced by whip) of dialectal snippersnapper. breaks down at the prospect of never seeing daddy again. Vital lessons about courage ("It's not just in you, it's in every choice you make") are a little heavy-handed and some of the soul-searching is a tad cloying but younger audiences, especially, should lap up Nim's gung-ho exploits. VERDICT: ***** CAPTION(S): RISING STAR... Abigail Breslin (far left) takes the lead role as a young girl marooned on a South Pacific island who calls on her favourite author (Jodie Foster) for help in Nim's Island (U). |
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