Bookworm Review

October 2, 2024 at 8:32pm
By Jason Stettner

A story of pure adventure, Bookworm follows a washed up magician or well illusionist if you ask him. That is Strawn Wise (Elijah Wood) who’s been called to action when his biological daughter Mildred (Nell Fisher) finds herself without a mother for an unknown period of time. It’s a movie about bonding between father and daughter with a bit of charm and flair to the scenario.

It’s quite straight forward and not necessarily anything we haven’t seen prior from this genre of film but it’s still charming and fun to see play out. Mildred is one of those unique, quirky and rather smart for her age children that’s also still vulnerable and learning. Strawn is quite the failure and is desperately trying to make it while using magic to try and impress his daughter along the way.

She just gives him nothing to work with, but the trials the two face bring them slowly together to some degree. It’s straight forward as I’ve mentioned, but also slightly more violent than I had anticipated. See, the real journey is that of capturing a rare panther on film which has some more daunting moments to it than one might expect.

This really is a rather beautiful film when it comes to the cinematography. It actually felt more like a series of nature travel showcases for New Zealand than anything else. It’s almost too pretty of a hiking scenario that might actually be distracting to some as they visit some overly majestic places while trekking along searching for this panther. The performances here were ranging in delivery.

I do believe Fisher provides a very good and believable youthful perspective that was a standout. That was paired with Wood obviously having fun as this failure of a magician. They don’t really interact with anyone else too long outside of a particularly surprising couple. The minor CGI elements were slightly rough but not too distracting since they were minimal in what’s largely just a nature showcase of New Zealand.

The Conclusion

Bookworm is a delightfully charming adventure across the majestic landscape of New Zealand, that also happened to feature a father bonding with his biological daughter. The whole situation was rather odd but not something we haven’t seen prior from movies with this sort of premise.

I was hoping for some sort of deeper element in this one but it did have some nice surprises here or there. It had some surprising violence to it but it’s still very much an all ages sort of experience. It’s easy going, fun and perhaps for some a tad boring depending on how into the concept you are.

I really enjoyed it, felt the performances were good and had a lovely time taking it all in. The scenario is honestly distracting at times. This very much is a central focused story around two characters so just prepare for that being the central focus here which is where it may not heavily hit with all that venture forth into viewing it.

Bookworm Review at Theater with Standard Viewing
Screening Provided by Calgary Film

Rating Overall: 7.5