Commentary on "The Last Mimsy"

[Hugh]

My wife and I watched the film on HBO On Demand last weekend and found it very enjoyable. We really did like the message but what struck us the most was the actress, Rhiannon Leigh Wryn, who played Emma, the 2-3 year old girl. She was sensational, which says a lot about her and about the director, Robert Sheve, who got that performance out of her. Chris O'Neil who played Noah, her brother, was also good but he was over shadowed by the girl who was the featured center of the story.

The story is based upon an old short story by the husband-and-wife writing team Henry Kuttner and C.L. Moore, ""Mimzy Were the Borogoves." It is about a probe sent back from the far future to find human DNA to restore a worn-out humanity that was dieing. It resembles "E.T." to a certain degree, but the story upon which it is based is about forty years older than Spielberg's classic. It also resembles the USA Network TV series, "4400" enough to lead me to believe that the writers of that series got their idea from the original story. But the film stands very well on its own. I found all parties to be portrayed well, even the federal agents involved with arresting the family were sympathetically portrayed as trying to stop what they initially believed was a terrorist attack that had blacked out a significant portion of Seattle and, only later, realizing that they had something very, very different on their hands. All in all, a very enjoyable film that would make good family viewing for kids over, say, 10 years old.

[JOHN THURSTON]

Thanks for posting that Hugh.

I will keep an eye out.