Nim's Island - worth it for Gerard Butler in a leather jacket!

I took my eight year old to see Nim's Island yesterday and breathed a huge sigh of relief... FINALLY someone in Hollywood made a GREAT movie for kids. It was the perfect blend of interesting story, imagination, laughs, a wee bit of tension/danger, more laughs, and Gerard Butler in a leather jacket and fedora...

Okay, that last part was all about MY needs.

Jodi Fosters 'part-agoraphobic' writer was played to comic perfection, without being OTT.

There was no overt violence, sexual innuendo, or graphic content that I'd have to explain to The Boy afterwards. It played to KIDS, and wasn't full of sexual innuendo or pop-culture references that only I would understand, as we see in so many 'kids' films these days.

Gerard Butler played a dual role -- Nim's father and the adventurer Alex Rover, who lived in the imaginations of both Nim and the writer, Alexandra Rover. The only weird thing here was he used both his natural Scottish accent while playing Alex (ah... perfection) and an awkward American accent for his Dad role (but still,... his lips were moving so that's okay).

In a nutshell: Widower-marine-biologist father and 11-year-old daughter live alone on an island in the South Asiatic Sea. Dad takes the sailboat to a reef to see some special phenomenon while daughter stays home to tend sea turtle eggs (girl is friends with the animals, her only playmates). Storm hits -- Dad's boat in trouble, he doesn't get home. Girl get's injured.


Meanwhile... Alexandra Rover is suffering writer's block. She decides to correspond with FATHER, whose article she read in National Geographic, but ends up exchanging emails with the injured and alone Nim. She overcomes her agoraphobia to get to the girl. And what an adventure she has in her travels!


Nim thinks Alex Rover is The Alex Rover, the character in the adventure books she loves, so when she finally meets Alexandra Rover, the author, a woman!, she is disappointed.


Both the girl and the author 'envision' Gerard Butler as Alex (yum) who appears to both and becomes the source of courage and strength.


If you have kids, I would highly recommend this fun movie.
***




Books - I read Sex, Straight Up by Kathleen O'Reilly. A Harlequin Blaze, I was able to finish it off in one sitting. A very satisfied one-sitting! It had the requisite amount of passion, pain, and sex. I saw that Smart Bitches gave it and A- and though it was enjoyable, there were a few things that bugged me about it so I'd go for a sold B.