Fly Away Home (1996)
Amy is only 13 years old when her mother is killed. She goes to Canada to live with her father, an eccentric inventor whom she barely knows. Amy is miserable in her new life... until she discovers a nest of goose eggs that were abandoned when a local forest was torn down. The eggs hatch and Amy becomes "Mama Goose". When Winter comes, Amy, and her dad must find a way to lead the birds South.
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a film so unique, intoxicating and bizarre that it not only demands another viewing, but is also forgivable as a satirical comedy where the jokes eventually take the back seat.
It's funny, it's tense, it features two great performances from two actors and the director expertly creates a web of odd tension where you actually don't know what is happening for the majority of the run time.
The movie's neither hopeful in contrived ways, nor hopeless in different contrived ways. Somehow it manages to be wonderful
The plot isn't so bad, but the pace of storytelling is too slow which makes people bored. Certain moments are so obvious and unnecessary for the main plot. I would've fast-forwarded those moments if it was an online streaming. The ending looks like implying a sequel, not sure if this movie will get one
When I was a kid in the 90s, I've heard a lot about this film. It was in the previews for the Jumanji, Matilda, and Madeline tapes. Then, from late 2008 to early 2009, I finally saw the entire film and it was really beautiful. It delivered what it promised. The comedy, the drama, and the flying sequences. And did I forget to mention that the geese are so adorable when they were babies? Anyway, on it's 20th anniversary, Fly Away Home still holds up. The story is really original and the concept was nothing I've ever seen before. A girl named Ammy, who copes with her mother's death in a tragic accident, finds a bunch of baby geese and trains them to fly. Her father decides to help her and as the geese grew up, he and his friends invented mechanical flying geese. Once they did that, they chartered a course that would bring the geese back home. The comedy and drama is just great and was perfectly balanced. The writing is superb, the pacing is tight, the music score from Mark Isham is beautiful, and the flying sequences are well done. The best part, however, would have to go to the acting. Overall, everyone gives a great performance with the best coming from Jeff Daniels and Anna Pacquin. Fly Away Home became an instant classic when it was first released at the time of blockbusters and it still holds up 20 years later. It's a perfectly example of flawless storytelling on it's own right. This deserves a recommendation to those who haven't seen it yet. :)
Amy Alden (Anna Paquin) survives a car crash where her mother is killed. She leaves New Zealand to live with her father Thomas (Jeff Daniels) in his ramshackle house in Ontario, Canada. She has no memories of her Canadian home and feels isolated. He's an eccentric inventor artist who flies his homemade glider. Susan Barnes (Dana Delany) is his girlfriend. After a land developer tears down some trees, Amy finds an abandoned nest of goose eggs. She raises the chicks but when the time comes, she has to teach them to fly south.This is a fine family movie. Anna Paquin is adorable and so are the chicks. The story is gentle feel good. Jeff Daniels is great as the eccentric dad. There is a real free feeling that comes from watching people run around with these geese. There is a minor drama with a wildlife officer and a main one with a land developer. In the end, the drama isn't too high but it's good for the whole family.
There aren't that many movies that are well-written, well-directed, that have beautiful scenery and a heart touching story, but this is certainly one of them. This movie is well worth the time it takes to watch it. In fact, we seem to rent it about every two or three years so we can view it again and will probably end up purchasing it, which we seldom do. I just can't say enough for this film. Whatever you do, watch it all the way to the end. Very worthwhile for families or anyone who appreciates nature and a great movie. One of the other things we really liked about the film was the fact that we live about a half mile away from one of the locations where it was filmed just outside of Niagara Falls, NY. That made it more personal for us.
There is already written a lot about the story of Fly Away Home, so I'm not going to repeat my previous reviewers.I have watched the movie for the first time on German TV in 1998, by chance I zapped into the movie and stayed there, mesmerized, fascinated, enchanted by its magical richness of animal (goose) beauty and lush landscape cinematography. When the film ended, I had a lump of emotion in my throat for several days. Something changed deep inside of me, namely the perception of nature, animals, birds, specifically of wild geese. Something made click inside my mind, and since then I adore geese very deeply. Before the movie, geese were of no special interest to me, oh how ignorant I was! As a matter of fact, my love is so deep and the movie inspires me so much that I want get my own geese.Fly Away home's cinematography and script is performed what I can describe as silent, calm, quiet and serene, but never lengthy; is performed suspense-packed, but never thriller-like. Romantic, but never corny or cliché. Close to life itself and nature, but never overcharged with exaggerated eco-messages. In short, a perfect mixture of all the elements that make a movie worthwhile.The landscape shots are very idyllic (Oscar nomination on this movie for cinematography) and you begin to long and crave for a life on the country-side, away from it all, the boisterous cities and its citizens with their insignificant problems of their everyday lives. When Amy is flying in her ultralight airplane, leading the flock of geese as their surrogate mother, then you can see that the problems on land, down there, are small and trivial. That is where the geese show us how life is meant to be, more simple, more straight-forward, and peaceful. Brilliant.And the film music, the fantastic movie score composed by Mark Isham, transports all the previous mentioned qualities and features in a perfect manner. The introductory song, 10,000 Miles by Mary Chapin Carpenter and co-composed by Mark Isham, is a real tearjerker of the special kind. This song alone summarizes what this movie is all about. Love, friendship, a deep bond among humans and animals, care for nature, peace, freedom and to never give up no matter what. The track expresses Amy's love to her family, and at the same time, the love between Amy and the wild geese. I cannot watch the movie without a package of Kleenex, and I'm male and an adult, a child at heart. I believe everyone has this ability, we just have to show it more often, and this movie can help to release the inner child in all of us.There is no lukewarm love story in Fly Away Home which is a big plus, if at all, it's only presented very subtle and unobtrusive. There have to be more movies like this to prevent a shallow development in our society, but I digress. The main focus of attention is clearly on the geese, who out-act all human actors with feathery ease. Bravo! Please, more movies like this! There are, to my knowledge, only a handful of movies where script, cinematography, directing, music, dialogs and actors come together and are mixed in this perfection.I can only recommend this movie to anyone who still believes in his or her dreams and wants to realize them. This movie supports you there and makes your imaginations soar, literally. As for my part, I'm checking out where I can get geese and how I have to keep them and gain their amazing friendship, deep bond and love. One of the most fascinating movies Hollywood has ever done, Oscar-nominated, and rightly so. Big kudos. Seal of approval: Highly recommended!