As amusing as it is to see Jai Courtney’s burly frame trudging around in an assortment of era-appropriate waistcoats, I don’t think his take on the character fully works – he seems like he’d belong more in a pub than on a lonely fishing boat. To me, Tom needs to feel a little distant – fatherly, but laconic and reserved, in a manner befitting a man who has isolated himself in this way. On the other hand, Jai Courtney as Hideaway Tom kind of bothered me – he’s doing a much broader, ‘Aussie Bloke’ version of Storm Boy’s father than the iterations of the character from the book and the earlier film. He inhabits the character, whom he has played in multiple stage productions, predictably well – he’s got really wonderful chemistry with Little, and lends a believable gravity to scenes in which Fingerbone performs traditional rituals, or imparts knowledge of the land to the young Storm Boy. Jamieson, likewise, brings a warm, necessarily laconic gentleness to his portrayal of Fingerbone Bill. He certainly doesn’t bring you out of the film, which for a kid that age working with such tender material is a real achievement. The film had to nail its choice of child actor, and the kid does a pretty admirable job in key emotional moments. In the title role, Finn Little is impressively subdued.
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The movie also gets points for great pelicans! Training the birds to do some of the endearing, human-like that things they do in this film must be a lot of work, and they’re never once anything less than convincing. Director of Photography Bruce Young also does a wonderful job, working with the scenery to produce some really beautiful images. Alan John’s score, with its ambient strings and that same emphasis on marimbas that makes me really dig the music from the Puberty Blues television series, perfectly accentuates Storm Boy’s relaxed mood. The remake benefits from all the polish of a modern film, one that clearly has a respectable budget for an Australian production. Percival grows to follow Storm Boy around like a trained pet, and the two develop a charmingly close relationship that is the core of this beloved Australian story.
Percival – a name that this new remake suggests comes from Lord of The Flies. He rescues three baby pelicans after their mother is killed by hunters, and he names the weakest one Mr. It’s a story those of us who grew up in this country are likely to know: young Mike (played in this film by 11-year-old Finn Little) lives in an isolated shack on Ninety Mile Beach in South Australia’s Coorong region, with his father Hideaway Tom (Jai Courtney) and their inscrutable Indigenous neighbour Fingerbone Bill (Trevor Jamieson). This becomes a framing device for the original story, and the film cuts back and forth as present-day Mike relates the tale of his childhood to his high-school-aged granddaughter, Maddie (Morgana Davies). This new remake, helmed by experienced television director Shawn Seet ( Underbelly, House Husbands, All Saints), makes some crucial changes to the classic story, and never quite does justice to the power of the original.Ģ019’s Storm Boy has a new plotline that sets it apart from the book and the 1976 film: this film begins and ends with an adult Mike Kingley (played by the controversial Geoffrey Rush), grappling with his memories of being the titular Storm Boy. Colin Thiele’s 1963 book and Henri Safran’s 1976 film will always hold a revered place in the Australian cultural imagination. While the film does harness the strength of its source material, it can’t hold to a candle to the original story. I didn’t go into Storm Boy with high expectations.
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