By Paul Byrnes
True Spirit ★★★
(PG) 106 minutes
The moment Jessica Watson’s boat upends in a huge storm off Tasmania, going mast-down and submerged beneath a roiling sea, the intrepid young sailor – so close to home – looks like a goner. Even though most Australians know that she succeeded in her ambition to sail around the world solo, unassisted and non-stop, the drama washes away all certainty. Will she survive?
Such is the power of a story well told. The movie is not uniformly as good, but this moment fulfils its promise as the action goes into slow motion and she floats in air, her hand reaching for an upside-down photo of her family on the bulkhead. Not that I believed it, of course. Surely the boat - a sturdy Sparkman & Stephens 34 – would have righted itself faster, if indeed she did go mast-down, I thought.
Teagan Croft as Jessica Watson in True Spirit, which features superb scenes at sea.Credit: Julian Panetta/Netflix
Well, hush my mouth. A little research reveals that Watson had three knockdowns in this storm – her mast hit the sea three times – and seven knockdowns in all. One of these did bury the mast. That is why most sailors do not attempt to circumnavigate the world, and especially not at 16.
True Spirit was the name of Watson’s book about the adventure that made her the youngest person to complete the solo journey – a year younger than Jesse Martin, who inspired her at age 12. It’s not a great title for a movie, but it does give an accurate sense of the film’s style, which is broad and gusting sentimental. This is a family-friendly picture, wholesome and tailored for the American market – although I suspect that director Sarah Spillane also shaped it to inspire teenage girls, in particular. And she does a good job within the constraints. Wholesome for America is a whole lot more proscriptive than it is here. Did the Watsons really never use the word “bloody” in their house?
Teagan Croft does a good job as Jessica, with sturdy support. Anna Paquin plays her mother Julie, trying constantly to bury her anxiety, and Cliff Curtis steals most of his scenes as Ben Bryant, a gruff old Kiwi who mentors Jessica from the age of 12. He’s an amalgam of several mentors, and therefore fictional.
The family scenes are cloying, pitching constantly towards high emotion. Thankfully, we leave much of that behind as Jessica puts to sea on Pink, her lurid pink boat with pink sails. The scenes at sea are superb, especially the storms. These encounters are terrifying – too bad they’re often interrupted by flashbacks to when Jessica was 12 and precocious. The drama of this story was always on the boat. The rest is mostly a distraction, aimed at bringing us to tears.
True Spirit is streaming on Netflix from February 3.
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