Elijah Wood and Ant Timpson on the Childlike Charms of Bookworm

Looking back at their last collaboration, 2019's bloody cult horror hit "Come to Daddy," you'd be surprised to see New Zealand writer-director Ant Timpson and actor-producer Elijah Wood turn their attention to a charming family-adventure flick. But "Bookworm," which just premiered as the opening night of the 2024 Fantasia International Film Festival, still carries that signature Timpson DNA: The aching pathos of fragmented parental dynamics, a deep debt to the genre films of the 1970s, and surprising twists and turns that pivot a seemingly simple story down wild new routes. 

From the opening frames, with its closed-off matte aspect ratio, soothing folk soundtrack, and yellowed shots of taxidermied animals and esoterica, "Bookworm" firmly establishes its eponymous character, precocious 11-year-old Mildred (Nell Fisher), in the atmosphere of the 1970s. An avid learner and self-sufficient scholar of animals, Madeline suddenly finds herself adrift when her mother lapses into a coma. The solution to their rising medical bills, she thinks, is the hefty reward offered for footage of the fabled Canterbury Panther, a mythical cat lurking somewhere in the New Zealand wilderness. One catch: Her only companion is her newly-arrived father, washed-up magician Strawn Wise (Elijah Wood), whom she's never met and who seems ill-prepared for the rough and tumble adventure ahead of them.

What follows is a charmer of a daddy-daughter picture, with the cheeky vibes and bright, Wes Anderson-ian charm of "Moonrise Kingdom" mixed with the deadpan wit of "Hunt for the Wilderpeople." The pair scour the wilderness, build an erstwhile bond, and learn to grow and be patient with each other's shortcomings. As for Wood's Strawn, he gets the chance to be the father -- or the man -- he never got to be.

Ahead of its premiere at Fantasia, RogerEbert.com sat down with Timpson and Wood over Zoom to talk about the origins of the film in Timpson's wild childhood, the long process to discover their brilliant child star in Fisher, and the links between Wood's meek protagonists in both of Timpson's films. 

This interview has been condensed for clarity.

I know that "Come to Daddy" was born partially from your father's recent passing, and both it and "Bookworm" deal with these kinds of fragmented father-child relationships. Is there anything that you wanted to explore here that evolved about your understanding of your father or parenthood?

Ant Timpson: Look, this is a love letter to the '70s in terms of filmmatic themes and the types of films I was obsessed with. But also, there was no helicopter parenting in that period of my life; the kids were free to roam. There were no GPS tags on us. The safety circumference around a house was probably 25 miles versus now, which is just the house. I grew up in a period in which kids had absolute freedom, and it feels very nostalgic to talk about it. 

So this came about from [screenwriter] Toby [Harvard] and I discussing the number one fear we had as fathers and parents: seeing total terror in our kids in a crisis situation, looking to us to step up, and seeing our fear reflected at them. It was based on a crazy family adventure I had a while back, which started as a nice Sunday afternoon walk with the kids and ended in complete disaster. There was an emergency call out and everything else. That hammered home the main theme for me, and I've always got to have this personal connection to the material. And Toby wrote a wonderful script with all these elements we've talked about for so long.

You mentioned the films of the '70s; were there any that acted as specific influences?

You don't use any things as Xerox; it's more a flavor to explain to other people the sort of tone poem we were going for. It wasn't things like "Deliverance" [laughs]. I love the wilderness survival films of the '70s, the sort of man-alone style. This was more honestly "Robinson Crusoe on Mars," "Swiss Family Robinson," "The Wilderness Family." These staple films. Like Robert Logan, the guy who was the stud father of the 70s who stepped up: he was in five of these types of films, where it was him and his family against nature and against all odds. I call them 'general entertainment,' you know. They didn't pander to children at all, they were just pure family films. They weren't really message-heavy, it was just about familial bonds and how people pull together under duress. They were really sweethearted. 

We wanted to capture that feeling that's lost in cinema today. There's a very genuine purity to it, but you have to find the right balance because it can become really saccharine. So you've got that sharp humor undercutting it all the way through, even through the personal trauma. That's my escape valve for anything horrific in my life.

Elijah, when it came time to inhabiting the character of Strawn Wise, obviously I think there's an interesting progression between Strawn and Norval [from "Come to Daddy"]. They're both very nervous people, unable to fit into the surroundings they're in, and have a strange delusion of grandeur about them. 

Elijah Wood: For me, the biggest challenge with Strawn was [learning the magic tricks]. There are a couple of moments in the film where specific magic tricks give you a sense of his real ability. For me, the most important thing was to be believable. That came down to card dexterity, to show that I'm comfortable with a deck of cards, so I can make that character a believable illusionist or magician. 

There was a magician I saw in Los Angeles over a month, Mike Pisciotta [of LA's Magic Castle], just sitting down and doing card fans, messing around with the deck, and picking up a card in such a way that it was comfortable in my hands. The thing about Strawn, to your point about the delusions of grandeur, is that he presents as more successful than he is. And when you start to get under his surface, he's actually kind of a failure. But I wanted that element of him to be real: he was good at one stage. But the rest was just the fun of a character with a sort of inflated self that is a protective element. He's trying to present himself to his daughter as this capable, successful person. And the cracks start to show, and he can't hold onto it anymore. The two of them are then thrust into scenarios beyond even his daughters' [ability].

There's an eagerness to impress that's a parallel with both characters, too. But speaking of the daughter, talk to me about how you discovered Nell Fisher in the role.

Ant Timpson: We did a nationwide search in New Zealand, and looked at a few hundred kids around that age -- anywhere from nine to 14 -- and there were a lot of auditions. It's one of those characters that could have gone off the rails of precociousness, so we wanted to find someone with that X factor and had an instant connection. Nell just leapt out. We did chemistry reads with Elijah, and it really popped up when you both hung out together. Hopefully, this doesn't sound offensive, but she looked like she could have been Elijah's love child [laughs].

I did a bit of due diligence on her; she'd worked on a low-budget film in New Zealand called "Northspur" when she was only eight, and she was really good. You could see something was happening there. Then she got "Evil Dead Rise," so we talked to Lee [Cronin], the director; I wanted to know how fun she was on set and if he had any pointers. He just said, "Look, hire her immediately. She's incredible." Honestly, she exceeded all expectations; she was incredibly well-rehearsed and prepped. She knew the entire script so well that she was giving me notes throughout. Not that Elijah ever drops a line, but when other people did, she knew theirs. That's skill. She's going to be in "Stranger Things," too, so we know she will be huge.