Magic Beach

Director: Robert Connolly
Starring: Spencer Ellis Anderson, Bigsy, Rylee Chuck
Distributor: Madman films
Runtime: 76 mins. Reviewed in Jan 2025
Reviewer: Fr Peter Malone msc

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Rating notes:

Magic Beach, based on Alison Lester’s book, features nine children and a dog, bringing their imaginations to life.

An Australian film for a younger audience, especially for those who have read Alison Lester’s children’s book. During the opening credits, illustrations from Lester’s book are used to excite the audience imagination. And they are contrasted with real life children, families, of the reading of the book.

Connolly has experience of films with family appeal, having directed Paper Planes and Blueback but there should be a special acknowledgment of animators Emma Kelly, Pierce Davison, Simon Rippingale, Marieka Walsh, Lee Whitmore, Kathy Sarpi, Susan Danta, Eddie White, Jake Duczynski, and Anthony Lucas, who were invited take a particular story and write, design, animate according to their particular talent and style, interest and inspiration.

So, while there are scenes with the children, some walking along the beach, some going into the water, some sitting in boats with binoculars, children and adults communicating with sign language, the final group of children and everyone on the beach, the stories within the story are varied, the young boy on the beach suddenly riding a white horse, racing with horses underwater, the young girl, with a mermaid story, more a pictorial fantasy – and a dog story. There are some adventures, pirates and smugglers along the coast, a group of children sitting in a boat with binoculars out to sea, a range of stories with different kinds of appeal, some more realistic than others and, if the audience doesn’t like one particular story then there is another one soon to come.

For older audience not familiar with the book and its illustrations, the experience might be less engaging. But, for those familiar with the book, the young children’s audience, there are stories to excite, to delight, and to open up the imagination.