Fly Away Home

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Fly Away Home ★★★ Father Goose; Flying Wild 1996 (PG)

Does for geese what “Babe” did for pigs. Young Amy (Paquin) withdraws when she loses her mother in a car crash and is forced to live with her estranged father, Thomas (Daniels), a scruffy sculptor/inventor, in rural Ontario. Still dealing with her own mother's death, Amy suddenly becomes a mother herself to a tiny gaggle of goslings when she happens upon a nest of uprooted eggs. Extraordinary technical achievements make up for some unnecessary melodrama in the second half as the geese head South, led by Amy, in a glider built by her father. Touching but unsentimental, mostly well scripted and acted, and extraordinarily shot. Based on the true story of inventor Bill Lishman, who led domesticated geese on a winter migration from Toronto, Canada to North Carolina, leading the formation in his motor-powered glider. 107m/C VHS, DVD . Jeff Daniels, Anna Paquin, Dana Delany, Terry Kinney, Jeremy Ratchford; D: Carroll Ballard; W: Robert Rodat, Vince McKewin; C: Caleb Deschanel; M: Mark Isham.

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