Bridge to Terabithia

Rating: PG.
Duration: 95 mins.
Genre: Adventure, Family, Fantasy.
Actors: Josh Hutcherson, AnnaSophia Robb, Zooey Deschanel, Robert Patrick.
Director: Gabor Csupo.
Release Date: 14 June 2007.

Synopsis
Bullied school kid Jesse Aaron befriends new girl Leslie Burke. An attraction between outsiders, their friendship feeds on her words and his pictures; together they create an imaginary kingdom in the woods behind their homes …

The Reality
Bridge to Terabithia is based on the Katherine Paterson book. Filmed in Auckland with special effects by Weta Workshop, it’s certainly a children’s classic that should find a home in the hearts of many kiwis.

But a children’s movie it is, and going to children’s movies always fills me with the dread of bad acting and cheesy scripts. Fortunately Terabithia turned out to be an enjoyable, engrossing movie experience for my entire family.

Sure, it’s got a swag load of predictability and clichés, but the casting was great, acting believable and the special effects, well, they were done by Weta, what more needs to be said?

Terabithia’s strength is in that of children’s imaginations, and the film actively encourages the viewer to embrace that, which can only be found in dreams. In short it encourages kids to be kids. In one scene Leslie tells her teacher that she doesn’t have a television at home because her father believes that TV only makes you dumb. In lieu of television, Leslie has grown up having to rely on her own fantasy world to entertain herself.

So if you want an infusion of imagination into your life, take the family to the land of Terabithia, you won’t look back!

Food for thought
Imagination is a gift, if we don’t use it, we insult the giver of the gift.