On this day, 12 August, last year I reviewed Ant Timpson’s family adventure movie Bookworm. It’s been available for home viewing for a while now and it’s a strong contender for a family night in front of the box as it’s a) local for New Zealanders and b) hasn’t been through the Disney-fication machine. It has some spine.
One of many pleasures to be found in Ant Timpson’s Bookworm is that the South Island landscape gets the kind of glorious treatment that is normally reserved for certain big fantasy films. New Zealand plays itself, for a change, and Timpson’s eye (with cinematographer Daniel Katz) for those wide expanses is a knowing riff on how we are normally shown those vistas, and the gag about going up to the rocks “where Liam Neeson played that talking Lion” is a decent one at star Elijah Wood’s expense.
(From memory, though, Frodo’s journey was to a very North Island Mount Doom and it was the rest of the fellowship that got to traipse around Canterbury and Otago. I stand to be corrected.)
Wood plays Strawn, a down-on-his-luck Magician (or “illusionist”) who travels half way across the world to look after an eleven-year-old daughter he has never met, after her mother has an accident with a toaster.
Mildred (Nell Fisher) has been promised an expedition into the wilderness to find evidence of the mythical Canterbury Panther, a big black cat that locals have been sighting for years without conclusive proof.
Against his urban, soft-centred instincts, Strawn agrees to chaperone Mildred on this trip but it is her knowledge of obscure bushcraft – gleaned from the books that gives the film its title – that gets them both into and out of trouble as the trip takes a much more adventurous turn than either was expecting.
The relationship between Strawn and Mildred is nicely grown, helped by the fact the her precocity stays just this side of being really annoying and that Wood – as he often does – leaves his own ego at the door and is content to look pretty ridiculous almost all of the time.
In the final climactic chase both characters are wearing their pyjamas – very fetching designs from Jaindra Watson but quite silly nonetheless.
And one final pleasure to cite: Northern Irish actor Michael Smiley can still be pretty terrifying even when he is ostensibly being funny, adding some grit to a very likeable family adventure film.
Also in the 12 August 2024 newsletter: the now-notorious potboiler It Ends With Us, National Theatre Live: Dear England (which will get another recommendation here as soon as it returns for home viewing) and The Three Musketeers: D'Artagnan.
Where to watch Bookworm
Aotearoa: Streaming on Prime Video or Neon
Australia: Streaming on Foxtel Now or Binge
Canada: Streaming on Crave
Ireland: Not currently available
India: Not currently available
USA: Streaming on Prime Video or The Roku Channel (free with ads) or Kanopy1
UK: Streaming on NowTV