The Over du Change

A New Zealand film? Based on a Margaret Mahy novel? Okay, I'll give this a go.

A school girl, Laura, has to look after her younger brother while her mother works (and her father isn't around). She gets warnings and feels that Jacko will be in trouble. Certainly they meet a creepy man, but he likes Jacko a lot. But then bad things start to happen, and only she can do something about it.

This has a lot of a feel of an abbreviated adventure about it. I do wonder how much extra the book had? Because there is a lot of "conveniently, this happens", where Laura just so happens to find the local witches and just so happens to do the right things at the right time and... yeah. It's only 90 minutes, so it feels like there is more that could have been done.

This movie is the introduction of Erana James as Laura, and she carries the movie well. Although Lucy Lawless gets a higher billing, she isn't more than a cameo. But we do get a really creepy performance from Timothy Spall. And Nicholas Galitzine seems to be channeling Robert Patterson.

Overall, this is a very YA take on a YA adventure.

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