Ant Timpson’s blooming lovely Bookworm converts the most cynical of hearts and makes them believe in magic. A rare film that speaks to kids and adults with sincerity and without condescension.
Idiosyncratic tween Mildred (Nell Fisher) is aware she’s not everyone’s cup of tea. Intensely focused, precociously intelligent, and lacking social filters – Mildred has made friends with books. Her overworked single mum Zo (Morgana O’Reilly) can barely get Mildred to tell her she loves her (she does) and accepts that Mildred has her ways even if they’re at times incomprehensible to her.
Mildred’s latest fixation is the possible urban legend the Canterbury Panther, an animal that has no conceivable reason to be running around New Zealand. She’s constructing traps using her cat Jonesy. She explains to her mum about the scientific intricacies of the genus. Her mum nods and smiles and tells her she knows a lot. “I am a card-carrying bookworm, so I do know a crap tonne of words,” Mildred replies with deadpan earnestness.
An accident with the kitchen toaster lands Zo in hospital in a coma: “Bad news. You’re going to need a new toaster. But you’re not going to need a new mum,” a well-meaning doctor tells Mildred. She’s not having any of it. She wants facts and she wants them now. The fact is that Zo is not dying but she’s not out of the woods and they can’t be sure when she will wake up. With no other family available, the one person Mildred has never met turns up to care for her; her biological father, Strawn Wise (Elijah Wood).
Strawn is a has-been Las Vegas magician (or “illusionist”) who still wears the too tight black pants and nail polish trying to charm less than impressed audiences with his close-up tricks. He’s never had an audience quite as tough as Mildred who takes the wind out of his sails at every opportunity. Her attitude is “You’re a deadbeat absent Dad, and you do shitty tricks.” Strawn is used to kids at least liking him and has no idea how to connect with his spiky daughter of whom he knows little. Yet, he’s eager to please and somehow make up for “stuff” so he agrees on taking Mildred camping so they can find video evidence of the Canterbury Panther currently worth $50,000.
One of many problems is that Strawn has never been camping (nor has Mildred for that matter) and he’s a bundle of anxiety. The unlikely duo takes on an equally unlikely quest through the wilds and wonders of New Zealand. If they don’t get lost it will be a miracle, let alone find the Canterbury Panther.
Ant Timpson and co-screenwriter Toby Harvard push two distinct but equally lonely and misunderstood personalities together on what becomes quite a fantastical adventure of discovery for them both. Mildred’s brittle sarcasm and controlling nature is contrasted to Strawn’s anxious immaturity. He’s a scaredy-cat of the epic variety: he almost faints when he has to deal with a Wētā – and to be fair, they’re pretty large insects. But his biggest challenge isn’t going to be dealing with the New Zealand bush, but his prickly daughter whose resentment at his absence from her life is a hurdle he doesn’t know how to get over. Can one impetuously undertaken camping trip be the place where the two find some common ground?
It is difficult not to be charmed by both Nell Fisher and Elijah Woods’ performances. Her brattiness is the result of a wall she’s been putting up for years as she faces rejection from kids and adults around her. When Strawn asks her how she is going at school she replies, “Oh school is wonderful!” and lists off all her achievements, each a lie. When he looks at her and asks, “Really?” Her response is, “Of course not, school is hell.” Strawn’s haplessness, eagerness to please, and sincerity rub against Mildred’s preconceptions of the man she’s been imagining for years. Yet, despite her anger she slowly warms to her man-child father as she finds him disarmingly honest behind the “magic guy” dressings.
It’s also hard not to be taken in by just how glorious Aotearoa is. Daniel Katz’s cinematography capturing what the country has on offer. There are parts of the film which are, by necessity, boosted or created with CGI, but Aotearoa knows how to give good movie face – a joke used later when a creepy hiker played by a too-toothy Michael Smiley says he and his wife were planning on going to see where Liam Neeson filmed that “lion movie”. One can imagine the glee Ant Timpson and Toby Harvard felt writing that particular line considering it was delivered in front of Frodo from The Lord of the Rings movie trilogy.
There are times Bookworm goes a little over the top, but they are deliberately inserted for the adventure narrative to keep younger audiences focused and engaged. However, even those are balanced with some adult enough humour, like Mildred tripping balls on mushrooms after a fall.
What makes Bookworm delightful is how Strawn and Mildred meet each other in the middle. They’re better matched than either realises. They’re both outsiders in a world where their eccentric natures have made them vulnerable and they’re both looking for someone to see them and encourage what is best about them. Mildred finds people confusing. She loves Zo, but she feels like she’s a burden for her overworked mum who doesn’t let her do things because she’s “a lot.” Mildred dislikes people who chatter and treat her like a child, but she also is a child who needs to be allowed to be upset by upsetting things and uplifted by wonderful things.
Strawn is honest with Mildred, admitting his mental health issues and his fears. He tells her he did want to be her father, but Zo had other plans and Mildred was conceived in a carpark in Vegas (“And they say romance is dead” Mildred quips). He is frustrated by his cowardice and his failure. And he’s angry at his ex-Illusionist partner David Blaine (there’s a great Leonardo DiCaprio ‘Wolf Pack’ joke here) for stealing his act and the fact he did nothing about it. Maybe he needs to grow up and face up to life at age 42. But also, maybe having a bit of magic around himself and Mildred is exactly what they both need.
Bookworm might stretch credulity in some of the adventure sequences, but that’s forgivable because of the glorious interactions between Strawn and Mildred. Falling in love with the two oddballs is easy and being drawn in to their blossoming and poignant relationship that accepts their foibles is a comedic and heartfelt balm.
Bookworm makes the case that dual citizenship needs to be granted to Elijah Wood so he can become a true New Zealand icon. But more than that, it’s a superb and fantastic film about discovering how to love someone and how brave that is. When Mildred says, “I love you with all my heart,” to both her parents at different times in the film, it echoes how Bookworm makes you feel.
Director: Ant Timpson
Writers: Toby Harvard & Ant Timpson
Starring: Nell Fisher, Elijah Wood, Morgana O’Reilly, and Michael Smiley
Bookworm screened as part of the 2024 Melbourne International Film Festival, and is playing in cinemas NOW!
