Storm Boy (2019 Australia)

Director:  Shawn Seet
Starring:  Jai Courtney, Geoffrey Rush, David Gulpilil
Genre: Drama
Duration: 120 mins

This new version of the Colin Thiele’s 1964 book about the relationship between a pelican and the son of a beach-dwelling hermit not only compares favourably with the original, it often outdoes it, offering more story and substance. The new film stages things a little more dramatically. It casts the story as a flashback told by an ageing corporate exec Mike (Geoffrey Rush) to his grand- daughter Madeline. She, like many in the community is angry that his company, which she is soon to be part of, wants to develop the beach where Mike raised three pelicans as a child with his reclusive fisherman dad and indigenous friend Fingerbone Bill. Though less subtle in its contemplation of environmental devastation, coping with loss and change and letting go of the ones you love, this four-decades-later remake still flaps its way into viewers’ hearts like its intrepid pelican hero.