DO FLY ZONE

By RICHARD SCHICKEL

Amy, the disaffected child (Anna Paquin), is moping around the farm, mourning her dead mother. Tom, Amy's distracted dad (Jeff Daniels), is in his workshop creating really strange metal sculptures--basically, if guiltily, ignoring his daughter. In the barn, though, a gaggle of orphaned goslings is beginning to hatch, and we all know what that means: the geese are in for some kind of trouble, father and daughter are in for some kind of bonding, and we're in for another trip down a slope--slippery with sentimental goo--that is all too familiar. And banal.

Right on the first two counts, but, miraculously, wrong on the last one. For Fly Away Home is as much a hymn to human eccentricity--and inventiveness--as it is to the human spirit. To begin with, these birds have an interesting problem. They have to learn to fly and migrate; since Amy was their first sight on earth, "imprinted" on the goslings as their mom, the seemingly impossible job of getting them airborne is hers. Good thing Dad likes to fool around with ultralight aircraft, which fly at roughly goose speed. Good thing Amy has the gumption to fly one of those contraptions.

But the very good things about Fly Away Home are the restrained naturalism of its playing; its gentle, unforced direction by Carroll Ballard; and above all its imagery, shot by cinematographer Caleb Deschanel, of Amy, Tom and the birds in flight. At once comic and soaring, artful and artless, these scenes lift us from earthbound disbelief and charm our acquiescence in the sweetest of adventures.

--By Richard Schickel