(2006) Set in the Australian outback - based on a novel by Michael Noonan and dedicated to his memory, with screenplay by Marc Rosenberg - Rod Hardy directed this film with Daniel Radcliffe (not in the role of Harry Potter) as Maps (actual name James), the oldest boy in the all-male St Gregory Orphanage and one of four orphans born in December. The story is narrated decades later by Vernon, nicknamed Misty (Lee Cormie) by his chums. The other two are Spit (James Fraser) and Sparks (Christian Byers).

Disappointed when another child gets adopted, from the balcony they moon the boy as he leaves with his new parents. It's December (summer downunder), and along with modest presents from the nuns and Father Scully, the four lads, who are like brothers, are granted a holiday in Lady Star Cove across "the sunburnt country" on the sea ("the Old Specific"), staying with Bandy (Jack Thompson) and his wife Skipper (Kris McQuade) McAnsh. Here they become acquainted with "Fearless" (Sullivan Stapleton) the motorcyclist and his wife Teresa (Victoria Hill); Lucy (Teresa Palmer), a teenager away from her father for the summer; and Old Shellback fishing for Henry (the biggest, oldest fish in the cove).

Excited and curious about everything in this new environment, the boys explore. Their first sighting of Teresa coming out of the water, confesses Vernon, since he and the others had never seen females other than the nuns, was the closest thing he'd experienced to a religious epiphany. Her horse Socrates supposedly can catch fish in his mouth.

There's no substitute for having a family: the boys are desperate for a good home, and "Fearless" and Tess are desperate to have a child in their home. After Misty alone accidentally overhears that one of them is likely to be adopted, he keeps the secret to himself and begins acting on his best behavior. On Father Scully's next visit he takes confession from the boys inside an old jalopy turning oven-hot in the sun; Misty receives advice to share his secret with his fellows, who also apply coercion to get the truth out.

While the younger boys, with the news, improve their grooming and manners, Maps says disdainfully he doesn't want to be adopted. Instead he meets with Lucy in her cave where she gives him a prize of his first kiss for trying to sing the lyrics to "Who'll Stop the Rain." Later she tells him that some people are called to God and can't refuse, the way metal is attracted to a huge magnet; Maps finds Lucy's cave irresistible.

As Misty's imagination runs off with cartwheeling nuns, Christmas arrives with gifts from Bandy (a gyroscope, a ship's conscience, provides balance) and others, followed by disappointments and heroics.

There's a problem with the dating of the story in the film: "Who'll Stop the Rain," written by John Fogerty and performed by his band Creedence Clearwater Revival in 1970, the song Lucy plays for Maps, seems chronologically out of place, perhaps by as much as two decades; when three of the boys, who were not yet in their teens, return to the cove together as adults - Max Cullen (born in 1940) narrates and appears as the mature Vernon along with Michael Norman as Sparks and Mike Welton as Spit - they appear to be in their 60s or 70s instead of middle-aged, as would have been expected 35 years later.

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Copyright © 2008 Patrick Ivers. All rights reserved.
Reproduced with the permission of the copyright holder.

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