Bridge to Terabithia (PG)

Over the last decade movies aimed at children have transformed into hollow, visually bloated spectacles designed to keep ankle biters quiet rather than stimulate their imaginations. The Spy Kids franchise and any of the slew of average CGI movies offered in the last few months are more akin to playing a computer game and it’s enough to make a movie critic suggest reading a good book instead. It’s ironic then that one of the best children’s films of this decade should materialise from the pages of Katherine Patterson’s Bridge to Terabithia.

More heart than Harry Potter and more enchanting than a world in a wardrobe, Bridge to Terabithia is the fairytale story of Jess (a fantastic Josh Hutcherson), who is an outsider in every meaning of the word. Alienated at school and misunderstood by his family he forms an unlikely friendship with new next door neighbour Leslie (an equally brilliant AnnaSophia Robb) that leads to discovery and heartbreak in a fantastically imagined world.

Patterson’s heart-warming story is directed with a subtly unforced hand by Gabor Csupo who avoids the pratfalls of recent fantasy flop Eragon and allows his sparingly used special effects to compliment the story rather than dictate it. The camera is never obtrusive in the lives of these two friends and as an audience we feel privileged to be allowed to watch their relationship blossom, enjoying and recognising a deep seeded memory of past experiences; climbing trees, chasing dragons, before being told to complete chores by angry parents. For that reason it is as much as a film for adults as kids.

Anyone expecting a Lord of the Rings lite fantasy epic will be sorely disappointed or at least surprised by what awaits them across the bridge. The fantastical elements of Terabithia could be in the children’s imagination and the relatively small scale approach to the scope of the story means that when the moments of escapism occur they feel all the more real, almost magical because they are of such stark contrast to the dull palette of the children’s troubled real world.

The young actors help achieve the realism of the story immensely by avoiding the insipid saccharine coated nature of most Hollywood sprogs, they illicit empathy and humour that makes you care for their plight and wholeheartedly experience their highs and lows. AnnaSophia Robb in particular should be marked as one to watch.

Recalling the innocence of youth and tackling serious subjects hand in hand in a way that Charlotte’s Web was too fragile to accomplish, Terabithia is a touching fable for all the family.