Film Review: Nim's Island
Film: Nim's Island (2008). Young Actress: Abigail Breslin, age 11.
Abigail stars as Nim, a young girl who lives with her scientist dad (Gerard Butler, Machine Gun Preacher) on their own private tropical island in the South Pacific; when her dad goes missing on a research trip, Nim asks for help from her favorite author, Alex Rover (Jodie Foster). Through a miscommunication, Alex thinks that Nim is Jack's adult research assistant, and Nim believes that Alex is a brave male adventure hero, not a klutzy, neurotic writer of adventure stories. As a huge fan of Abigail, I enjoyed this movie. Watching her play with sea lions, swim in the waves, and swing through the trees, it's hard to imagine that any young actress has ever had more fun filming a movie than Abigail had filming this one. Her joyous spirit shines through in every one of her scenes. (The hairstyle she wore as Nim made her face look rounder, which gave her a surprising resemblance to Rachel Hurd-Wood.)
Nim is not pleased to discover Alex's true identity...
But if you're not a huge fan of Abigail, you would might find this movie more than a little boring. Overall, it's a rather average kidventure flick, perhaps most memorable for Jodie Foster stepping out of her usual dramatic genre and into a comedic role. In fact, I think that this is the first children's movie that Jodie's made since she was a child star herself - which brings me to another notable aspect of the film: uniting two of the youngest Oscar nominees. Jodie was nominated for Best Supporting Actress at age 14 in 1977 for Taxi Driver, and Abigail was nominated in the same category at age 10 in 2007 for Little Miss Sunshine. While it's fun to imagine them having a conversation about this, in an interview with People magazine to promote the film, Jodie said that this similarity between them never came up. The default icon for this community is of Jodie and Abigail, taken from a photoshoot to promote Nim's Island.
...but eventually, she warms up to her.
Reviews of Abigail's other films: My Sister's Keeper (2009), August: Osage County (2013), and Perfect Sisters (2014).