A fable-esque comedy-drama about an estranged father and his daughter on a perilous mission, "Bookworm" is a wisp of a movie. It feels a wee bit padded even at a brisk 96 minutes (it's tough to do "deadpan" in a comedy and not have it come off as merely slow) and has trouble staying on the right side of too-cutesy. But it sustains an innocent storybook tone throughout, thanks mainly to strong performances from its lead actors, Elijah Wood and Nell Fisher, and lush images of the New Zealand countryside. (Is Wood revisiting a few spots that he passed en route to Mordor in the "The Lord of the Rings" movies? It looks like it.)
Mildred is the title character, a precocious, loquacious young lady who is wise beyond her years. ("Are you familiar with Maswell's hierarchy of needs?" she inquires at one point.) Mildred is part of a long tradition of spunky-adorable movie kids who parent their parents a lot of the time. The parent who needs parenting is Mildred's dad, Strawn, a longhaired American man-boy who is struggling along in his career as a magician (he prefers the word "illusionist"). He hasn't been part of her life since she was tiny but re-enters it after Mildred's mother ends up in a coma because her toaster exploded.
Mildred's mother is deeply in debt, and the girl wants to surprise her when she reawakens by paying off her bills. Mildred plans to do this by getting photos of the elusive Canterbury Panther (not a real animal, in case you were thinking of going to New Zealand to look for it) and collecting a $50,000 reward. Mildred's dad offers to take her on a camping trip to try to find the beast. And off we go into a father-daughter bonding movie with lovely scenery and likable actors that is, for the most part, content to be merely pleasant, with bursts of whimsy and melancholy and the occasional poetically apt image (such as a horrific moment reflected in the panther's eyeball). Most of "Bookworm" is a two-person play that happens outdoors. However, there's a detour involving a couple of hikers who are not what they appear to be and end up causing a bit of trouble that you know will eventually be resolved in the main characters' favor because we're not watching a "Now go home and be sad forever about the injustice of life" movie, and nobody involved is pretending we are.
"Bookworm" is written by Toby Harvard and directed by Ant Timpson, who founded New Zealand's 48 Hours film challenge, won during its first year by an unknown handsome funnyman named Taika Waititi. Harvard and Timpson worked with Wood previously on the horror comedy "The Greasy Strangler." It's fun to see the three of them working comfortably in a mode that's equally anti-realistic but quite different yet similarly committed to its chosen, frankly uncommercial story and tone.
Wood's fame is so strongly defined by Peter Jackson's original Tolkien trilogy that his subsequent, often very strong work has understandably been overshadowed by it. He adds another memorable performance to the gallery here. He uses his expressive eyes and warm voice to breathe life into a well-meaning but rather hapless character who finds his inner dad just when it's most crucial. Fisher is such a forceful and assured talent that you never question this character's credibility, even when nothing she says or does would ever be encountered in life. If that makes sense, this young actress is a Roald Dahl child—the resilient, imaginative kind. She'd have made a wonderful Matilda.
