''Nim's Island'' is a 2008

adventure film An adventure film is a form of adventure fiction, and is a genre of film. Subgenres of adventure films include swashbuckler films, pirate films, and survival films. Adventure films may also be combined with other film genres such as action, an ...

written and directed by

Jennifer Flackett Jennifer Flackett is an American film director, film producer, screenwriter and television writer. In television, she has written for series ''Beverly Hills, 90210'', ''L.A. Law'' and '' Earth 2''. As a screenwriter, she wrote on the films ''Mad ...

and

Mark Levin Mark Reed Levin (; born September 21, 1957) is an American lawyer, author, and radio personality. He is the host of syndicated radio show Broadcast syndication is the practice of leasing the right to broadcasting television shows and rad ...

, and based on the children's story of the same name by

Wendy Orr Wendy Orr is a Canadian-born Australian writer born in Edmonton, Alberta. She is probably best known as the author of ''Nim's Island'', which was made into a film in 2008 starring Jodie Foster, Abigail Breslin and Gerard Butler Gerard Ja ...

. A young girl alone on a remote island seeks help from an

agoraphobic Agoraphobia is a mental and behavioral disorder, specifically an anxiety disorder characterized by symptoms of anxiety in situations where the person perceives their environment to be unsafe with no easy way to escape. These situations can in ...

San Franciscan author. While the author attempts to overcome her agoraphobia to search for her, Nim tries to overcome her fear of losing her father. It stars

Abigail Breslin Abigail Kathleen Breslin (born April 14, 1996) is an American actress. She rose to prominence with the comedy-drama film '' Little Miss Sunshine'' (2006), for which she received a nomination for the Academy Award for Best Supporting Actress at ...

Jodie Foster Alicia Christian "Jodie" Foster (born November 19, 1962) is an American actress and filmmaker. She is the recipient of numerous accolades, including two Academy Awards, three British Academy Film Awards, three Golden Globe Awards, and the ho ...

, and

Gerard Butler Gerard James Butler (born 13 November 1969) is a Scottish actor and film producer. After studying law, he turned to acting in the mid-1990s with small roles in productions such as ''Mrs Brown'' (1997), the James Bond film ''Tomorrow Never Di ...

, and was released on 4 April 2008 by

20th Century Fox 20th Century Studios, Inc. (previously known as 20th Century Fox) is an American film production company headquartered at the Fox Studio Lot in the Century City area of Los Angeles. As of 2019, it serves as a film production arm of Walt Dis ...

. The film received mixed reviews from critics and earned $100.1 million on a $37 million budget.

Plot

11-year-old Nim (

) lives with her

widower A widow (female) or widower (male) is a person whose spouse has died. Terminology The state of having lost one's spouse to death is termed ''widowhood''. An archaic term for a widow is "relict," literally "someone left over". This word can so ...

marine biologist Marine biology is the scientific study of the biology of marine life, organisms in the sea. Given that in biology many scientific classification, phyla, family (biology), families and genera have some species that live in the sea and others th ...

father Jack Rusoe (

) on a South Pacific island. Jack has told Nim that her mother Emily died when she was swallowed by a

blue whale The blue whale (''Balaenoptera musculus'') is a marine mammal and a baleen whale. Reaching a maximum confirmed length of and weighing up to , it is the largest animal known to have ever existed. The blue whale's long and slender body can ...

after it was scared by a ship called ''The Buccaneer''. Nim has several native animals for company:

Selkie In Celtic and Norse mythology, selkies (also spelled ', ', ') or selkie folk ( sco, selkie fowk) meaning 'seal folk' are mythological beings capable of therianthropy, changing from seal to human form by shedding their skin. They are found ...

the

sea lion Sea lions are pinnipeds characterized by external ear flaps, long foreflippers, the ability to walk on all fours, short and thick hair, and a big chest and belly. Together with the fur seals, they make up the family Otariidae, eared seals. ...

, Fred the

bearded dragon ''Pogona'' is a genus of reptiles containing six lizard species which are often known by the common name bearded dragons. The name "bearded dragon" refers to the underside of the throat (or "beard") of the lizard, which can turn black and gain we ...

, Chica the

sea turtle Sea turtles (superfamily Chelonioidea), sometimes called marine turtles, are reptiles of the order Testudines and of the suborder Cryptodira. The seven existing species of sea turtles are the flatback, green, hawksbill, leatherback, loggerhead, ...

, and

Galileo Galileo di Vincenzo Bonaiuti de' Galilei (15 February 1564 – 8 January 1642) was an Italian astronomer, physicist and engineer, sometimes described as a polymath. Commonly referred to as Galileo, his name was pronounced (, ). He was ...

the

pelican Pelicans (genus ''Pelecanus'') are a genus of large water birds that make up the family Pelecanidae. They are characterized by a long beak and a large throat pouch used for catching prey and draining water from the scooped-up contents before s ...

. Jack takes the boat for a two-day scientific mission to find ''

Protozoa Protozoa (singular: protozoan or protozoon; alternative plural: protozoans) are a group of single-celled eukaryotes, either free-living or parasitic, that feed on organic matter such as other microorganisms or organic tissues and debris. Histo ...

nim'', a new species of

plankton Plankton are the diverse collection of organisms found in Hydrosphere, water (or atmosphere, air) that are unable to propel themselves against a Ocean current, current (or wind). The individual organisms constituting plankton are called plankt ...

he has named after her. He wants to take Nim along but she convinces him she can manage on her own and must stay to oversee the imminent hatching of Chica's eggs. They will be able to communicate by

satellite phone A satellite telephone, satellite phone or satphone is a type of mobile phone that connects to other phones or the telephone network by radio through orbiting satellites instead of terrestrial cell sites, as cellphones do. The advantage of a sa ...

. Nim is fond of "Alex Rover" adventure books written by Alexandra Rover (

). Nim receives an email addressed to her father from "Alex Rover" enquiring about Jack's field of knowledge. She imagines it is from the explorer but is actually from the author. The author, in turn, is a neurotic

agoraphobe Agoraphobia is a mental and behavioral disorder, specifically an anxiety disorder characterized by symptoms of anxiety in situations where the person perceives their environment to be unsafe with no easy way to escape. These situations can in ...

who imagines she is speaking to her fictional hero Alex Rover (also portrayed by Butler). An email conversation follows. Jack’s sailboat has a problem in a

cyclone In meteorology, a cyclone () is a large air mass that rotates around a strong center of low atmospheric pressure, counterclockwise in the Northern Hemisphere and clockwise in the Southern Hemisphere as viewed from above (opposite to an anti ...

and cannot return on the planned day, nor communicate with Nim. Galileo brings Jack things he needs to fix his ship as

shark Sharks are a group of elasmobranch fish characterized by a cartilaginous skeleton, five to seven gill slits on the sides of the head, and pectoral fins that are not fused to the head. Modern sharks are classified within the clade Selachimo ...

s begin to circle. Nim tells Alex her father has not returned as planned but she feels powerless to help, given that she can hardly even open her own door. The island is visited by uncouth tourists who Nim believes to be

pirates Piracy is an act of robbery or criminal violence by ship or boat-borne attackers upon another ship or a coastal area, typically with the goal of stealing cargo and other valuable goods. Those who conduct acts of piracy are called pirates, v ...

, as the name of their

cruise liner Cruise ships are large passenger ships used mainly for vacationing. Unlike ocean liners, which are used for transport, cruise ships typically embark on round-trip voyages to various ports-of-call, where passengers may go on tours known as "sho ...

is ''The Buccaneer.'' She attempts to make the island unattractive to them by catapulting lizards to shore, and by making a fire in the crater of the

volcano A volcano is a rupture in the crust of a planetary-mass object, such as Earth, that allows hot lava, volcanic ash, and gases to escape from a magma chamber below the surface. On Earth, volcanoes are most often found where tectonic plates are ...

and rolling

boulder In geology, a boulder (or rarely bowlder) is a rock fragment with size greater than in diameter. Smaller pieces are called cobbles and pebbles. While a boulder may be small enough to move or roll manually, others are extremely massive. In c ...

s down the slopes to make it appear to be erupting. In so doing she inadvertently triggers an actual eruption. The tourists scramble for the boats. One of them, a boy, Edmund, sees and catches up with Nim. He is confused by her presence and she tells him she lives on the island. He tells the others, but no one believes him. Meanwhile, Alexandra's visions of her character Alex Rover help her to overcome her agoraphobia in order to travel to the island to rescue Nim. Nim, expecting "Alex" (the fictional male character), at first rejects Alexandra, but later relents and they share a meal. The next day, Nim starts to cry, reasoning that if her ever-successful father were still alive he would be back already. Luckily, Jack reaches the island

windsurfing Windsurfing is a wind propelled water sport that is a combination of sailing and surfing. It is also referred to as "sailboarding" and "boardsailing", and emerged in the late 1960s from the aerospace and surf culture of California. Windsurfing ga ...

on a makeshift

catamaran A Formula 16 beachable catamaran Powered catamaran passenger ferry at Salem, Massachusetts, United States A catamaran () (informally, a "cat") is a multi-hulled watercraft featuring two parallel hulls of equal size. It is a geometry-stab ...

. Jack and Alex meet and begin to get to know each other (Alex amazed at Jack being just as she imagined her fictional character). The film ends with everyone playing on the beach, using a

coconut The coconut tree (''Cocos nucifera'') is a member of the palm tree family ( Arecaceae) and the only living species of the genus ''Cocos''. The term "coconut" (or the archaic "cocoanut") can refer to the whole coconut palm, the seed, or the ...

as a ball.

Cast

as Nim Rusoe *

as Alexandra "Alex" Rover *

as Jack Rusoe / Alex Rover *

Anthony Simcoe Anthony Simcoe (born 7 June 1969) is an Australian actor, known for his portrayal of Steve Kerrigan in the 1997 film '' The Castle'' and Ka D'Argo in the science fiction television series ''Farscape''. The 1.98m (6 ft 6 in) Simcoe is a gr ...

as First Mate *

Alphonso McAuley Alphonso McAuley (born April 21, 1979) is an American actor and social media personality. McAuley played Cassius Sparks on Fox's comedy television series '' Breaking In'' and played Hutch in ABC's '' The Middle''. Early life and education McA ...

as Russell * Morgan Griffin as Alice * Michael Carman as

Captain Captain is a title, an appellative for the commanding officer of a military unit; the supreme leader of a navy ship, merchant ship, aeroplane, spacecraft, or other vessel; or the commander of a port, fire or police department, election precinct, e ...

* Christopher Baker as

Ensign An ensign is the national flag flown on a vessel to indicate nationality. The ensign is the largest flag, generally flown at the stern (rear) of the ship while in port. The naval ensign (also known as war ensign), used on warships, may be diffe ...

* Maddison Joyce as Edmund * Peter Callan as Edmund's Father

Production

Shooting took place on

Hinchinbrook Island Hinchinbrook Island (or Pouandai to the Biyaygiri people) is an island in the Cassowary Coast Region, Queensland, Australia. It lies east of Cardwell and north of Lucinda, separated from the north-eastern coast of Queensland by the narrow Hi ...

, off the northeast coast of

Queensland ) , nickname = Sunshine State , image_map = Queensland in Australia.svg , map_caption = Location of Queensland in Australia , subdivision_type = Country , subdivision_name = Australia , established_title = Before federation , established_ ...

Australia Australia, officially the Commonwealth of Australia, is a Sovereign state, sovereign country comprising the mainland of the Australia (continent), Australian continent, the island of Tasmania, and numerous List of islands of Australia, sma ...

over three weeks and ended in October 2007.

Reception

The review aggregator

Rotten Tomatoes Rotten Tomatoes is an American review-aggregation website for film and television. The company was launched in August 1998 by three undergraduate students at the University of California, Berkeley: Senh Duong, Patrick Y. Lee, and Stephen Wang ...

reports that 51% of 104 surveyed critics gave the film a positive review; the average rating is 5.7/10. The site's consensus reads: "Despite good intentions, ''Nim's Island'' flounders under an implausible storyline, simplistic stock characters, and distracting product placement."

Metacritic Metacritic is a website that review aggregator, aggregates reviews of films, TV shows, music albums, video games and formerly, books. For each product, the scores from each review are averaged (a weighted arithmetic mean, weighted average). M ...

reported the film had an average score of 55 out of 100 based on 24 reviews. In its opening weekend, ''Nim's Island'' grossed $13.3 million in 3,513 theaters in the United States and Canada, ranking #2 at the box office behind ''21''. The film had a US box office gross of $48 million and a foreign gross of $52 million, for a total gross of $100 million worldwide. The film was nominated by the

Visual Effects Society Awards The Visual Effects Society (VES) is an entertainment industry organization representing visual effects practitioners including artists, animators, technologists, model makers, educators, studio leaders, supervisors, PR/marketing specialists and p ...

in the category of Outstanding Supporting Visual Effects in a Feature Motion Picture.

Home media release

''Nim's Island'' was released on DVD on 5 August 2008. It opened at #1 at the DVD sales chart, selling 466,326 DVD units and earning $8.4 million. As per the latest figures, 1,013,100 DVD units have been sold, grossing $21.4 million in the US.

Soundtrack

The score to ''Nim's Island'' was composed by award-winning composer

Patrick Doyle Patrick Doyle (born 6 April 1953) is a Scottish film composer with Irish heritage. A longtime collaborator of actor-director Kenneth Branagh, Doyle is known for his work composing for films such as ''Henry V'', ''Sense and Sensibility'', ''Hamle ...

. He recorded his score with the

Hollywood Studio Symphony The Hollywood Studio Symphony (sometimes the Hollywood Freelance Studio Symphony) is the credited name of the symphony orchestra behind many major soundtracks, including '' The Chronicles of Narnia: The Lion, the Witch and the Wardrobe'', ''Suck ...

at the Sony Scoring Stage during the week of 3 February 2008. This marked the first time in a decade that he recorded a score in Los Angeles. The song playing over the

closing credits Closing credits or end credits are a list of the Cast member, cast and Film crew, crew of a particular Film, motion picture, television program, or video game. Where opening credits appear at the beginning of a work, closing credits appear clos ...

is "

Beautiful Day "Beautiful Day" is a song by Irish rock band U2. It is the first track on their tenth studio album, ''All That You Can't Leave Behind'' (2000), and was released as the album's lead single on 9 October 2000. The song was a commercial success, h ...

" by U2. The film's soundtrack CD was released on 8 April 2008 from

Varèse Sarabande Varèse Sarabande is an American record label, owned by Concord Music Group and distributed by Universal Music Group, which specializes in film scores and original cast recordings. It aims to reissue rare or unavailable albums, as well as newer r ...

Sequel

A sequel, ''

Return to Nim's Island Return may refer to: In business, economics, and finance * Return on investment (ROI), the financial gain after an expense. * Rate of return, the financial term for the profit or loss derived from an investment * Tax return, a blank document or t ...

'', was released theatrically in Australia on 4 April 2013 in 77 screens with an opening weekend box office take of AUS$176,848. It aired on the Hallmark Channel on 15 March in the U.S. and was released on DVD 19 March 2013, exclusively to

Wal-Mart Walmart Inc. (; formerly Wal-Mart Stores, Inc.) is an American multinational retail corporation that operates a chain of hypermarkets (also called supercenters), discount department stores, and grocery stores from the United States, headquarter ...

, and two days later on 21 March worldwide.

Box Office Mojo Box Office Mojo is an American website that tracks box-office revenue in a systematic, algorithmic way. The site was founded in 1998 by Brandon Gray, and was bought in 2008 by IMDb, which itself is owned by Amazon. History Brandon Gray began ...

reports AUS$1.1 million in revenues overall. Bindi Irwin replaced

as Nim Rusoe,

Toby Wallace Toby Wallace (born 6 June 1995) is a British-born Australian actor, known for his role in '' Babyteeth'' (2019), for which he won the Marcello Mastroianni Award at the 2019 Venice Film Festival and the AACTA for Best Actor in a Leading Role i ...

replaced Maddison Joyce as Edmund, and

Matthew Lillard Matthew Lyn Lillard (born January 24, 1970) is an American actor. His early film work includes Chip Sutphin in ''Serial Mom'' (1994), Emmanuel "Cereal Killer" Goldstein in ''Hackers'' (1995), Stu Macher in ''Scream'' (1996), Stevo in ''SLC Punk ...

replaced

as Jack Rusoe, Nim's father.

References

External links

* * * * *
Nim's Island
– Full production notes for ''Nim's Island'' {{Jennifer Flackett and Mark Levin 2008 films 2000s children's films 2000s fantasy adventure films 20th Century Fox films American children's films American children's adventure films Australian children's adventure films Australian fantasy adventure films 2000s English-language films Agoraphobia in fiction Australia in fiction Fictional islands Films based on children's books Films scored by Patrick Doyle Films set in San Francisco Films set in Oceania Films set on fictional islands Films shot at Village Roadshow Studios Films about mental health Films about writers Films about children Films about lizards Summit Entertainment films Universal Pictures films Walden Media films 2000s American films