L'envolée sauvage

This movie has something thats missing in a lot of other movies. It has a soul, and a belief in good.

Its believable, beautiful and smooth. Its cast shows that they´re as good as any renowned "great" actor of the day, and the story is quite light...yet its something strangely moving about it.

A daughter that looses her mother, which leads her to take care of doomed geese. And even though the cute-scale is quite high, the movie still holds you cause of its fine acting and soulful goodness.

This is a great movie for all ages. Its nice shooted, really nice telled, and good acted.

Its a given choice for the whole family. 9/10!

Ps. The soundtrack is also very nice. Suttle, clean and memorable.

A family film .. yes but certainly one that can be watched and watched again without the need for a licensing child. Jeff Daniels is superb as an eccentric father who takes on board his daughter after his estranged wife's death in a car accident. A strong supporting cast (including geese) are driven to support Amy's desire to assist a bunch of orphaned geese to maintain a wild existence. This involves teaching the geese to fly and leading them South by air. This journey for both the daughter coping with grief after the loss of her mother, the father in discovering his daughter once more and the geese in finding a new home for the Winter adds up to .. well tears and more tears.

Before you write this film off as "fantasy" take the time to watch the BBC's Life of Birds final part. There you meet a remarkable farmer from the US who is using a microlite to aid a few of the last remaining Whooping Cranes to re-establish migratory patterns.

In the UK the site of skeins of wild geese migrating in Winter form their Summer homes in Iceland and the Arctic circle is one of the last great wildlife dramas left on this small island. The views in Fly away Home of Amy's geese as they move in to join the hundreds of wild geese powering South capture this majesty. This story of a group of people who care about and assist this natural pattern may help reinforce some of the awe that we should all feel when confronted with these epic and annual journeys.

Following Toy Story comes Fly Away Home, another string to the increasingly large bow of children's films that adults can also enjoy. The story follows Amy, a 13-year-old New Zealand girl who is forced to live with her estranged father in Canada following a car crash that kills her mother. Amy becomes increasingly withdrawn and upset until she finds a collection of similarly orphaned goslings that she takes care of, nurturing them until they are ready to migrate to the southern United States.

The film could easily have fallen into the sappy ‘family film' category. However, it never lets itself, choosing to concentrate more on characters than moments. Amy's character, played with breathtaking maturity by Anna Paquin, is better developed and more complex than characters in most films aimed at adults. The supporting cast also flesh out their strong characters to make the whole film much more believable.

The cinematography is beautiful, the dusky-autumnal scenes are captured in an explosion of reds and yellows and oranges that seem to wash over you time and time again, and the final flight sequence is a wonderful closing to an incredibly refreshing film.

WARNING: This review may reveal portions of the movie plot.

If you want to just lose yourself in a story that is sweet and uplifting, then this is the movie for you. I was surprised at how efficiently this movie drew me in, but then again I'm a big softie at heart. I started watching this movie late one night and didn't want to stop -- so I didn't!

The movie concerns a young girl who goes to live with her father after her mother is killed in a car accident. Dad and Mom divorced many years before and live on opposite sides of the world -- Canada and New Zealand -- so she doesn't know Dad very well.

Jeff Bridges plays the father in this film and does it incredibly well. He's an artist who is just a little bit quirky, a big believer in following your dreams, and desperately trying to capture the love for his daughter that he regrets having lost in the divorce years before. Anna Paquin as his 13-year old daughter is wonderful -- how do young kids act so well??? -- as she learns to grieve for her mother, find a new life in a new country, and love and trust a father whom she has barely known most of her life.

The supporting cast shines as well, in most cases. Most notably is Terry Kinney as Daniels brother and the young girls uncle. He's the kind of uncle everyone wants to have around, although when he falls asleep while babysitting and Paquin's character disappears, he doesn't seem very responsible. He becomes a bit of a scene stealer though as the movie progresses. He has one of the best lines in the film when he tries to convince a U.S. border-patrol agent that he needs dozens of gallons of gas to go camping for his portable generator to run his blender and TV. "Nothing like camping in the middle of no where with your VCR, a good movie, and a pina colada."

Dana Delany (of TV's "China Beach" fame) plays Daniels sometimes live-in girlfriend and seems to be the only actor who doesn't really stretch in this part. I don't believe this is Delany's fault, however. This story is primarily about the father-daughter relationship, and Delany's part suffers as a result. Most scenes are supportive and don't really give her a chance to shine.

The story is well written with a combination of genuine emotion, without becoming overly sappy. Yes, the film is sweet, but not sickeningly so. When the credits began to roll at the end of this movie, the first thing I thought of way, "How could this have gotten a PG rating?" I *literally* heard one four-letter word in the entire film, and that is said under the breath so that I wasn't even sure I heard it. There is one reference to sex outside marriage, and a car accident at the beginning of the film. That's it. Parents, you can show this to young children without any real concern. My suggestion: Watch the first 5 minutes of the film and if you decide your children can handle the opening sequence of a car crash, then there probably is nothing else in the film that should be a problem (in my opinion!)

Amy Alden (Anna Paquin) survives a car crash where her mother is killed. She leaves New Zealand to live with her father Thomas (Jeff Daniels) in his ramshackle house in Ontario, Canada. She has no memories of her Canadian home and feels isolated. He's an eccentric inventor artist who flies his homemade glider. Susan Barnes (Dana Delany) is his girlfriend. After a land developer tears down some trees, Amy finds an abandoned nest of goose eggs. She raises the chicks but when the time comes, she has to teach them to fly south.

This is a fine family movie. Anna Paquin is adorable and so are the chicks. The story is gentle feel good. Jeff Daniels is great as the eccentric dad. There is a real free feeling that comes from watching people run around with these geese. There is a minor drama with a wildlife officer and a main one with a land developer. In the end, the drama isn't too high but it's good for the whole family.