What on earth is this Laura Dekker? A casually tossed descriptor of “old soul,” is good, except she’s also a New Zealand-born, Dutch-raised fifteen-year-old who fights a year-long legal battle to be allowed to be the youngest person to ever traverse the world’s seas solo, helming a thirty-eight-foot ketch all on her own. Bold, brave, stubborn? Director Jillian Schlesinger discovered the subject of her first documentary feature, “Maidentrip,” while reading about Laura in a New York Times op-ed about the pitched controversy around her hoped-for adventure, “How Young is Too Young to Sail Around the World?” But not only does Schlesinger catch up with her in ports of entry, Dekker records herself, from South Africa to Australia, to Polynesia, the Canaries, the Galapagos. Rushed with cold gray rain, planning routes that avoid known pirate lanes, called “adventurous but not reckless,” she’s just herself: a teenager. But, to use a hackneyed phrase, her “sense of adventure” in this extraordinary assemblage of events on her 25,000-mile journey, Dekker pounds the overscaled, would-be lyrical-la-la of Ben Stiller’s “The Secret Life of Walter Mitty” into the sea, crashes it, smashes it. The first-person confession diary entries to camera seal the deal: all is not lost when a thing is done through personal exploration more than through self-display. 81m. (Ray Pride)
Ray Pride is Newcity’s Senior Editor and Film Critic. He is a contributing editor of Filmmaker magazine.
Ray’s history of Chicago Ghost Signs is planned for publication next year. Previews of the project are on Twitter and on Instagram. More photography on Instagram.
Heart: A Review of Soul The real world is soulful, too, in Pixar's bountiful life of the mind.
Seeing The Elephant: A Review Of Babylon The boisterous, brawling yet melancholy "Babylon," is a variation on film history, but more drawing for drama. It's gaudy and mean, celebratory and sorrowful.
A Drag Getting Old: A Review Of Indiana Jones 5 In the protracted opening couple of reels, a very young, computer-crafted Harrison Ford plays a younger cultural marauder who first encounters the dull MacGuffin of the title.
Fine Line: A Review Of Shortcomings It's a season for the comeuppance of a curmudgeon in Randall Park's smart, biting "Shortcomings," adapted by Adrian Tomine from his graphic novel of the same name.
Heart of Darkness: A Review of The Batman The three-hour film noir unfolds briskly, an intensive study in the pervasive interplay of power, money and corruption in what seems like perpetual rainy night.
RECOMMENDED
