Eye Of The Dolphin

“I hate dolphins” grumps high-school rebel Alyssa (Schroeder). From that moment, you know it’s only a matter of time before she’ll be doing everything she can to save the smartest mammals in the ocean from the smartest mammals on land.

It’s a year after her mother’s death and Alyssa has just been suspended from school, leaving her exasperated granny (Ross) no choice but to tell her the truth about her father James (Irishman Dunbar, trying out his best Yankee drawl).

Turns out he’s not so much dead as having a great time studying dolphins down in the Bahamas . Or at least he was until he suddenly finds himself face to face with his ex’s mother and lumbered with a sulky 14-year-old daughter he never knew he had.

On top of that, the local council has brought in a smug zoo developer (funny girl Jane Lynch, playing it straight) to pooh-pooh his work and turn his research facility into a SeaWorld-style tourist trap.

Meanwhile, with James’s girlfriend and her fish-chomping dad as local tour guides, the place starts to grow on Alyssa. Then, one glorious day in a blue lagoon, she finally clicks with her fine, flippered friends.

But will their big, happy family sink or swim?

While sailing the same feelgood seas as Free Willy and Nim’s Island, writer-director Michael Sellers pitches his tale at a slightly more mature audience with a script that isn’t coy about sex and presents both sides of the economy-ecology debate.

Appealingly shot and nicely performed – especially by the non-human cast – it’ll have you counting down the days to your next holiday in the sun.

Elliott Noble