Director Carroll Ballard is known for his films that explore the relationship between man and nature. His first film, The Black Stallion (1979), was also his greatest commercial and critical success. But his career has continued nonetheless, with the unjustly ignored Never Cry Wolf (1983) and Fly Away Home (1996) adding to his impressive resume.

On its surface, Fly Away Home seems like a forgettable children's fantasy. Recovering from a tragedy, young Amy Alden (Anna Paquin) discovers sixteen eggs from a Canadian goose nesting area that has been razed by evil land developers. Amy raises the geese, helps teach them to fly, and leads them South for the winter in her daddy's ultralight. In addition to becoming a media celebrity, she also rescues a wild bird refuge in North Carolina from more evil land developers.

If the plot summary above oozes with cynicism, it's because we've seen too many uplifting family movies, featuring heroic, spoiled little girls who have apparently been cast from the Ford modeling agency. And it seems hypocritical for Hollywood studios to have liberal themes that castigate capitalists, when the studios themselves are conservative corporations that crank out formulaic films to make a profit.

But difficult as the plot is to accept, it is based on a true story. Bill Lishman and Joseph Duff successfully experimented with ultralight craft to develop migratory flight patterns in endangered bird species. They both appear in the film, as pilot doubles for Paquin and her quirky inventor father, played by Jeff Daniels.

Amy and her father also have unfortunate real-life prototypes with Jessica Dubroff, the seven year old who died in a plane crash with her father and flight instructor in April 1996. There are also creepy allusions to the recent World Trade Center tragedy, as the ultralights are forced to navigate around city skyscrapers after losing their way in a dense fog.

But Amy's character is fourteen, twice the age of Jessica Dubroff. Fly Away Home is better compared with National Velvet (1944), which had a young Elizabeth Taylor winning England's greatest steeplechase. If no has complained why Taylor's character should risk her neck (remember Gone With the Wind?) to win some money, then it seems unfair to criticize Amy for her altruistic efforts to help orphaned birds.

Both films are family-oriented adventures and fantasies. A child is less likely to see Fly Away Home and beg her father to build her an ultralight craft, than to see National Velvet and ask for a steeplechase horse. Fantasies are hardly limited to films targeted to little girls; adult men have their detective stories, not to mention any film that includes the word 'Bikini' in the title.

Anna Paquin has much in common with her character. She was born in Canada, moved to New Zealand when she was four, and has divorced parents. She won a Best Supporting Actress Oscar for her very first film, The Piano (1993). Her promising career has since gone commercial, with leading roles in X-Men and She's All That.

The real strength of Fly Away Home isn't its environmentalist themes, or its heart-tugging drama of a family coming together. Its outstanding cinematography earned Caleb Deschanel an Academy Award nomination, and Mark Isham's classical score is also exceptional. Then there are the real stars of the film, the sixteen adorable Canadian geese, whom we see raised from hatchlings to fully-grown birds. (68/100)

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Recommended:
Yes

Viewing Format: VHS
Video Occasion: Fit for Friday Evening
Suitability For Children: Suitable for Children up Ages 8