A Film Review of Fly Away Home
A Film To Gander At
C.S. Lewis, in writing about children's stories, commented that any story worth reading as a child should be worth rereading as an adult. Unfortunately, anyone with children knows that such a standard is not too often realized. But Fly Away Home is one of those wonderful exceptions -- a children's movie the whole family will enjoy. Now out on video after an initial release in the Fall of 1996, here is a film to watch together and then discuss over a meal.
Fly Away Home is "about" parenting. Amy, a thirteen year old New Zealander played by Oscar winner Anna Paquin, loses her mother in a car crash as the film opens (the scene is not gruesome) and must go to live with her father on a small farm in Ontario, Canada. Thomas Alden, an eccentric artist and inventor who creates strange metal sculptures and constantly tinkers with the latest glider or ultralite plane, largely ignores his daughter out of guilt for the divorce and because of his preoccupation as an artist. For her part, Amy disengages from life at her new home out of pain and confusion. Does he care? Can I trust him?
Amy's isolation and her father's bewilderment begin to change only when Amy finds sixteen goose eggs, their mother the victim of a land developer's bulldozer. Amy rescues the eggs and helps them hatch in a drawer of her mother's old scarves. These goslings literally become her new family. The chicks imprint on Amy, following their "mother" anywhere and everywhere.
As the new "family" develops, so too a bond begins to form between father and daughter. Thomas realizes the geese are important to Amy and tries to help them escape the over-zealous clutches of a ranger. We follow father and daughter as they first teach the young geese to fly and then to migrate south for the winter, their only hope of survival. The unwavering trust of the geese in Amy becomes mirrored in the growing trust between Amy and Thomas.
Father and daughter soar in their ultralite planes with the geese in formation behind their "mother." And the movie soars, too. There is a serene quality to the photography as we glide with the geese over fields, lakes and cities. Even a contrived deadline set by evil real estate developers in North Carolina cannot derail the movie. The message of "garden over machine" is too simplistic for real life, but in this fable, it works. You will cheer for Amy and her geese.
The movie is based very loosely on the experiments of writer-naturalist Bill Lishman. During the mid-80's, he showed that newly hatched geese would imprint to humans and follow them in flight as they guided geese southward using small planes. But this film is not meant to be realistic biography; it is a fable meant to inspire and evoke.
Stunningly photographed by Caleb Deschanel and lyrically directed by Carroll Ballard, Fly Away Home was made by the same team who created the children's classic, The Black Stallion (1979). The film includes a beautiful score with a haunting ballad by Amy's mother which is sung by Mary Chapin Carpenter ("Fair thee well my own true love, farewell for awhile, I'm going away....").
There are some magical moments in this film, as when Amy and a gosling just hatched look each other in the eye, or when Amy and her father emerge unexpectedly from the fog to find themselves among the skyscrapers of Baltimore. But equally awe-inspiring is the growth of a new love between father and daughter. When Amy asks her dad why he never came to see her, Thomas answers, "New Zealand's really far away." Only for Amy to reply, "That's a really lame excuse, Dad." And Thomas is able finally to say, "I was afraid, Amy. Angry. I'm really sorry." Not only have the geese found their way to a new home in North Carolina, Amy (and Thomas) have come home too.
There are several themes in this film worth discussing with family or friends: the sanctity of life, all life; perseverance pays off; human inventiveness is a wonderful thing; it is important to keep promises. But first and foremost, the film portrays the rebirth of a family -- families can have second chances, too.