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Features: DVD, Widescreen, Aspect Ratio 1.85:1, Dolby Digital (5.1), Dolby Surround Sound, English, Subtitled
The soaring adventure of a 13-year-old girl and her estranged father who learn what family is all about when they adopt an orphaned flock of geese and teach them to fly!
"Two thumbs up. Way up!" Siskel & Ebert
"...inspired moviemaking." Peter Stack, San Francisco Chronicle
"Soaring! A hymn to the human spirit!" Richard Schickel, Time Magazine
Editor's Note
Carroll Ballard returns to the form of his earlier classics THE BLACK STALLION and NEVER CRY WOLF with this inspiring family drama about the human spirit's ability to tame and conquer nature. In Canada, 13-year-old Amy Alden (Anna Paquin) is having difficulty coping with her mother's recent death. To make matters worse, she is now forced to move in with her eccentric father, Thomas (Jeff Bridges). But everything changes when 12 orphan goslings hatch and Amy becomes their surrogate mother. Amy and the birds instantly bond, their relationship aiding the young girl's emotional state. However, the geese grow up fast, and Amy realizes that they must be sent out on their own. With the help of her father, Amy devises a preposterous plan to force the birds to migrate south, overcoming insurmountable odds--both human and natural--in the process. Ballard's film, based on Bill Lishman's autobiography, is a heartfelt, moving drama that is universal in its themes of love, hope, and determination. Paquin delivers another solid performance as Amy, proving her Oscar for THE PIANO was no fluke. What lifts FLY AWAY HOME to another plateau, however, is Caleb Deschanel's splendid cinematography, which captures the gorgeous landscape in a way that makes Amy's final journey even more miraculous.
| Features | Animated Menus | | Scene Selection | | Production Notes | | Documentary: The Ultra Geese | | Theatrical Trailers | | Filmographies | | Isolated 5.1 Musical Score With Composer Mark Isham's Commentary | | HBO Special: Leading The Flock | | Exclusive Featurette--Operation Migration: Birds Of A Feather | | Korean Subtitles | | Thai Subtitles | | Director And Cinematographer's Commentary | | French Subtitles | | Portuguese Subtitles | | Chinese Subtitles | | Portuguese Audio | | English Subtitles | | Spanish Subtitles | | English 2-Channel Dolby Surround | | French Audio | | Spanish Audio | | Digitally Mastered Audio And Anamorphic Video | | Widescreen Version | | English 5.1 Surround Dolby Digital |
| Entertainment Reviews
 | Fly Away Home - DVD Review By: Bradley Null - filmcritic.com DVD Reviews Published on: 3/27/2009 5:36 PM | |
Anna Paquin's first starring role after stealing an Oscar for The Piano is the harmless family movie Fly Away Home. Following in the footsteps of countless family movies before it, Fly Away Home tries too hard to appeal to both children and their parents and ultimately loses much of its appeal to everybody.
In case you missed the movie's trailer, which provides a nice plot synopsis, Fly Away Home is about a teenage girl (Paquin) from New Zealand who moves in with her Canadian father (Jeff Daniels) after her mother dies. The young girl is utterly bored and lonely until she finds a family of young goose eggs (eventually geese) to take care of....read the full review |
| Technical Info
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Release Information
| | Studio: Columbia Tri-Star |
| Release Date: 12/21/2004 |
| Running Time: 108 minutes |
| Original Release Date: 1996 | | Catalog ID: 06046 | | UPC: 00043396060463 | | Number of Discs: 1 |
Audio & Video
| | Original Language: English | | Available Audio Tracks: English, French Dubbed, Portuguese Dubbed, Spanish Dubbed | | Available Subtitles: English, French, Korean, Portuguese, Spanish, Thai, Chinese | | Video: Color |
Aspect Ratio | | 1.85:1 |
| Cast & Crew
| Awards |
Oscar (1997) | | | Caleb Deschanel, Nominee, Best Cinematography |
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| | Professional Reviews | Rolling Stone
"...One of the best movies around....Feisty, fun and lyrical..." 10/17/1996 p.142Entertainment Weekly
"...[Paquin] is lovely and grave....The flying sequences are gorgeous..." -- Rating: B 10/04/1996 p.45 Variety
"...Engrossing....A richly composed, beautifully lit picture..." 09/02/1996 Los Angeles Times
"...A pleasant and high-spirited affair, one of the rare films that manages to be irresistible without resorting to emotional blackmail..." 09/13/1996 p.F1 Chicago Sun-Times
"...A splendid fantasy....Visually uplifting, and the story is quirky enough and the dialogue so fresh and well-acted that this film rises above its genre..." 09/13/1996 p.33 Total Film
"...Ballard is something of an expert in animal movies, but this semi-true tale is his most affecting work..." 12/01/2003 p.133 A.V. Club
"FLY AWAY HOME adds a story about parenting and maturation that enriches Deschanel's stunning aerial photography." -- Grade: A- 04/08/2009 New York Times 8 of 10
The tender beauty of Carroll Ballard's Fly Away Home goes well beyond what might be expected from a movie about things that hatch... Ballard turns a potentially treacly children's film into an exhilarating '90s fable. It concerns family, ecology, adolescence and, above all (quite literally) geese. See it and you will never look at a down comforter in quite the same way. - Janet Maslin
ReelViews 8 of 10
Let me say up front that I have never been especially fond of Canadian geese... Now that I've made that admission, you might be surprised to learn that I actually liked the goose-fest, Fly Away Home. However, while there are geese aplenty here, the movie isn't so much about birds as it is about a lonely little girl and how, in pursuit of a common goal, she and her estranged father find one another... a warm drama that's more about love and trust between a father and daughter than inter-species connections. The result, even for geese-haters, is charming. - James Berardinelli
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