Nim's Island

By Robbie Collin

NIM'S Island is perhaps the most impossible plot to explain of any film I've reviewed...ever.

And for a movie aimed at under-tens, that's not a good thing.

Nim (Abigail Breslin) lives on a South Pacific island with her dad (Gerard Butler).

When he goes missing at sea, she contacts her favourite author Alexandra Rover (Jodie Foster), writer of the Alex Rover adventures, to ask for help.

That's because Nim believes Alexandra is not a neurotic female writer, but actually her fictional hero Alex.

The author decides to help and Alex appears as a ‘real' character in the film, chatting to both of them, rather than only in their imaginations. And, just to confuse matters further, Nim's dad and Alex are played by the same man.

Got it? I'm not sure I do. And the poor sprogs in the screening looked as if they'd been ordered to solve Pi at gunpoint.

It's not all bad, though. There's some Saturday morning standard slapstick as Foster walks into a few trees.

And connoisseurs of flatulence will be enchanted by a pumping sea lion. The fictional character Alex Rover, from Alexandra Rover's books, appears as a 'real' character in the film-ie he walks around and chats to both Nim and Alexandra, as if he's there with them rather than in their imaginations.

Alexandra Rover isn't a real author-she's a character in the film. Alex Rover is a character within her books-ie, a fiction within a fiction. It's the two tiers of fiction that makes this so confusing, especially as it's never explicitly explained that even within the 'reality' of the film, he's an imaginary character.