I idealised this as a movie about the beauty of the natural world. I realise now its also about surviving loss and finding strength when everything looks hopelessRead all the other My favourite film choicesThe best arts and entertainment during self-isolationMy love for Fly Away Home coincided with moving to the countryside; where my mum and I had lived in cul-de-sac after cul-de-sac, our new home was surrounded by only a cluster of other houses, and then field after field. The Canadian prairie it was not – you could just make out the lights of the out-of-town supermarket from our garden – but it was around that time, I think, that I started to understand the benefits of the great outdoors. Fly Away Home, similarly, begins with a new start, albeit under more traumatic circumstances. After her mother dies in a car accident, 13-year-old Amy moves from
New Zealand to
Canada to live with her estranged father, Tom. He’s eccentric, a sculptor and inventor with a home full of odd creations, including a replica of the lunar lander. And then Amy finds a nest of orphaned goose eggs. Being the first thing they see when they hatch, she becomes their Mother Goose – feeding them, teaching them to fly and, eventually, guiding them south for the winter with the help of her father and two home-built ultralight gliders.I wanted to be just like Amy, attuned to the natural world. I had grand plans of spending my days in the fields around my new home. I would learn to identify trees and bugs at a glance, and imitate bird calls. I turned out like any other teenager of my generation, of course, watching
Friends for hours and spending far too long perfecting my MySpace profile. But now as an adult, especially one living in
London, I crave nature. Even in normal times, I become antsy if I’m cooped up inside for too long. I need a regular dose of country air, to stand on top of a hill and feel the wind rattle through my hair and my clothes.