Jodie Foster was the child actress back in the 70s, even earning an Oscar nomination for her role in Taxi Driver. She was one of the few to not only leave her acting area behind to attend college, but also made a comeback, successfully resurrecting her career as a young adult. The present young It Girl, Abigail Breslin, seems poised to follow the same path, with a string of hit movies behind her at just 12 years old. It seems only fitting for them to now star in family film, Nim’s Island
Breslin plays the title character, a young girl living with her widowed marine biologist father (Gerard Butler) on a deserted island.He makes the difficult decision to leave her for a few days while he goes on a mission at sea, yet trouble arises with a huge storm. Nim’s father becomes lost at sea, and she’s forced to depend on her own survival skills.
Living the sheltered life that she does, Nim has no other friends or family other than her father and the animals that live on the island with her. She has created a world for herself outside of the island by disappearing into her favorite adventure novels by Alex Rover. When her father doesn’t return and she becomes worried, she has nowhere else to turn, so looks up Alex. What Nim doesn’t realize, is that Alex is is a pen name for Alexandra Rover, an agoraphobic author who doesn’t leave her home (Foster). Alexandra gathers up her maternal instincts and heads out to help Nim.
While Foster has had comedic roles before, she’s mostly known in her adult acting career for her dramatic talents. Yet in Nim’s Island she pulled off the comedy quite well. It’s not that I didn’t think she could; I was just forgetting she could. In addition, she brings the role to a really warm maternal place. With Breslin we never think of her as a cute little girl, just extremely confident. It’s not that she isn’t cute, that’s just not what her roles are set up for, unlike most other young girl roles. Looking back, it’s similar to Foster’s early career, a real good sign that there are just as many good things on the horizon for Breslin.