Fly Away Home

Fly Away Home is a family drama film directed by Carroll Ballard based on the book Father Goose, an autobiography by Canadian artist and inventor Bill Lishman. It was released at the Toronto International Film Festival by Columbia Pictures on September 13, 1996. Synopsis

Thirteen-year-old Amy Alden is riding with her mother Aliane on a rainy night in New Zealand. A distracted Aliane is speaking on her cellular phone when a truck crashes into the car, sending it tumbling across the road. Amy wakes up in the hospital the next day. Her estranged father Thomas Alden is there, telling her he’s come from Canada to take her home and that her mother was killed.

On a spring evening one month later, the Aldens arrive at Thomas’ farm in Ontario. The house is a mess filled with the artists’ sculptures and contraptions. Amy is fascinated by the new place but is cold and distant with her father. She doesn’t remember anything, having only lived there the three first years of her life. In the morning, Amy draws the curtains and sees her father flying a hang glider. She rushes out of the house for a better view. She is amazed at the sight, but when her father lands clumsily, screaming out with delight, Amy runs back into the house, glancing at him with scorn. She later joins him in an old barn converted into a shop. Thomas is working on a large iron dragon and tells Amy he is behind in his work and will be busy for the next few days. Amy replies she is not a baby and walks away. She finds herself in the upper part of the barn where a Lunar Lander replica has been stored away. She later asks her father about it as he is preparing lunch, and the man explains he thought it was a shame that the original Lunar Lander had been left on the moon and felt they needed another one. He also reveals he was working on it when Aliane left, taking Amy with her, probably thinking he was crazy for doing it. He admits to it, recalling they were penniless at the time. A red-haired woman appears on the doorstep. Thomas introduces her as his friend Susan. Susan hands Amy a welcome gift of feather earrings, but when an annoyed Amy realizes she is her father’s girlfriend and will be part of her new life, she excuses herself and climbs upstairs. She opens her tuba case, looking at childhood photographs decorating the inside of the case. She is now remembering moments spent in Ontario but is mostly associating them with her lost mother. A grieving Amy starts wandering aimlessly around the farm while her father is absorbed in his work at the shop.

One morning, Amy is depressed. "I'm not going to school anymore. I'd rather die than go back there," she tells her father. She still pretends to go, but hides in the tall grasses and continues wandering around. She approaches a marsh where many trees have been uprooted by a development team. Finding sixteen Canada goose eggs among the rubble, Amy decides to bring them home, using an old dresser as a makeshift incubator on the upper part of the barn. As the eggs are soon to hatch, Amy gets up early in the morning to run to the barn before school, but she is stopped in her tracks by a funny blond man lying on the couch. Thomas introduces him as her uncle David, explaining his brother has come to give him a hand with his sculpture. Amy doesn’t have time to go to the barn as the school bus driver is honking away and the girl has to run. The geese hatch while she is in class. Amy sneaks out to the barn at dusk to check on their progress. As she opens the drawer, sixteen wet goslings look up to her, struggling to escape their eggshells. The girl is wonder-struck. Since she is the first living thing the birds see, they imprint on her and won’t leave her side. Meanwhile, Thomas and Susan come home from a town meeting regarding the potentially destructive development project. They find David asleep in front of the television set and Amy missing. They run out in panic calling out to her, but Susan soon finds her asleep in the barn, a flock of fluffy goslings gathered all around her. Amy wakes up and begs her father to let her keep them. Thomas agrees, but heads to the Animal Regulation office the following day to ask for advice.

Officer Glen Seifert meets up with the Aldens on the week-end with the intention of clipping the goslings’ wings according to an ordinance requiring all domestically raised geese to be rendered flightless. Amy reacts violently to his attempt and begins hitting him with a popcorn bowl. She locks herself up with the geese in the bathroom while an angry Thomas pushes Seifert outside, telling him to stay off their property. The officer declares he will have to confiscate the geese as soon as they start to fly. Thomas tries to convince Amy to come out, assuring her he knew nothing of the ordinance, but she refuses. Thomas has a conversation with Susan, telling her how he’s tried everything to make his relationship with Amy work but is failing miserably. Susan won't get involved, telling Thomas he has to figure it out for himself. Thomas heads to the shop in the morning where he meets his mechanic friend Barry Strickland who brought him battens for his sculptures. Thomas invites him over for coffee. Still locked up into the bathroom, Amy takes a shower and decides to use her father’s mysterious fish mouth soap dispenser invention. She ends up spraying shampoo all over her eyes and steps out of the shower screaming. A worried Thomas forces the lock. Amy is naked and tells him to get out, and as Thomas starts looking for a towel, Amy is startled to see a handsome young man staring at her in confusion. Susan orders Thomas to leave and closes the door behind her. Amy is furious and wants to know who the young man is. Susan tries to calm her down but Amy won’t cooperate. Susan raises her voice and sets things straight with Amy: "Listen to me. I know I can never replace your mother. Nobody can. But if you let me, I can be your friend. And the first rule of friends is to trust each other, right? I promise you nothing is going to happen to those geese." Amy breaks into tears and allows Susan to embrace her.

As the school year ends, Amy and her father spend the summer months raising the sixteen goslings that are gradually turning into majestic Canada geese. Amy gives a name to each one according to their quirks, such as Long John, Fluffy, Featherbrain, Grubby, Stinky and Igor, who was born with a limp. Thomas is stunned to see the geese follow Amy everywhere she goes, even when she is riding a four-wheeler. It occurs to him that when it is time for the migratory birds to fly south, they might be willing to follow an ultralight aircraft.

With this in mind, and with the help of Barry Strickland and his brother David, Thomas begins experimenting with various glider prototypes. The men keep failing until they come up with the C-IBYE model that allows for safe flying and smooth landing. At this point, Thomas shares his idea with Susan and Amy who both think it is plain crazy. Thomas reminds Amy Officer Seifert means to confiscate the geese and clip their wings; if Amy teaches the geese to trust him and follow his ultralight, perhaps they can succeed in introducing them to a migratory path they will adopt and use every fall to go south and come back to the farm on their own. Amy is willing to try and is successful at teaching the geese to follow her father. Thomas adds engine sound recordings to the process as well as plane-like contraptions so the geese can get used to flying with his C-IBYE. But when the plane itself is added to the equation, the geese won’t follow and always remain on the ground with Amy, even when she hides away in the bushes.

Everybody is discouraged. But one afternoon, while Thomas is talking to Susan, Amy decides to fly the plane herself. She crashes a few meters further, but for the short time she was in mid-air, the geese had tagged along all the way. Thomas runs to her in anguish; the girl is in shock but not hurt. Amy is moved to see her father crying and embraces him with genuine affection. The following day, Thomas dares suggest Amy could learn to fly and they could both lead the geese south in the fall. Susan is enraged: "She nearly broke her neck yesterday!" But Amy overhears and bursts out in joy. Thomas sells his Lunar Lander replica to Japanese businessmen and has a safe ultralight aircraft made just for her. Amy learns to fly, and as she is rehearsing with her father, the geese escape their pen and form on the tip of her wing. "I don’t believe it, it works!" David exclaims. Sitting in the high grasses observing the feat, Susan smiles to herself and agrees to join in the project.

Seeing their efforts bearing fruit, the team begins to plan an itinerary. David is adamant they must be thorough with every step and volunteers to take a trip down to North Carolina to consult an ornithologist of his acquaintance. Doctor Killian is very skeptical about the operation. David insists he has seen the birds follow the aircrafts himself and reminds the doctor that if geese can do this, other endangered migratory birds such as whooping cranes and trumpeter swans could profit from the experience. Doctor Killian mentions a patch of wetland that is up for sale in the area; the land is protected by the government, but if no wild bird shows up by November 1st, it will be made available to developers. David comes home announcing he has found the perfect spot; the departure is set for October the 22nd.

One day, as Thomas and Amy are training the geese for the long flight, "Goose Ground" Barry tells "Mama Goose" Amy through her radio that Igor has not followed, as is often the case. A radio call from Amy encourages the goose to come along, but as Igor is about to reach the flock, he is hit by the ultralight’s right wing and disappears into the forest. The pilots head home and go looking for Igor. They call out to him for hours before they finally find him; the bird is missing primary feathers, preventing him from taking part in the migration. As Igor is brought home, Amy discovers the fifteen other geese are missing from their pen, as Officer Seifert has come to confiscate them while they were away.

On October the 22nd, Thomas picks Amy up at school during recess and they prepare for the long trip. Igor has been tied up in Amy’s old baby carrier and will be travelling with her in her ultralight. David and Barry contact Thomas from the Animal Regulation office where they have found the fifteen other geese kept in individual cages on the side of the building. As they see Officer Seifert leaving the office for a school presentation, David approaches the remaining officer to distract him with a wild story. Barry cuts the padlock and releases the geese. Thomas and Amy arrive in their aircrafts and on Amy’s radio call, the geese fly away and follow along. As they are heading towards Lake Ontario, they fly above the school and Amy’s classmates run outside to see her. Officer Seifert is stumped.

Night is falling and the pilots have been flying over the lake for hours. The geese are exhausted. The team realizes they have to land soon and Thomas suggests an airfield he is seeing in the distance, not realizing it is the Niagara Air Force Base; the aircrafts appear on the base’s radar and since no communication is made, military pilots are preparing to attack. Thomas and Amy are arrested as soon as they step down from their crafts and taken to Commander Olin Hatfield who gives them a good scolding. He is nonetheless very inspired by their story which makes the headlines the next day.

Migration continues and as the operation is now widely known to the public, environmentalists gather at the North Carolina wetland with Doctor Killian to denounce the presence of developers who are ready to destroy it for their own benefit. As they progress, the pilots encounter a large flock of wild geese heading south. Amy’s birds are irresistibly attracted and join their wild brethren. The wild flock lands on a pond a few hours later. Hunters are hiding in the grasses, ready to shoot the geese as they touch the water, but the pilots, who have been following the flock, fly right above the hunters to frighten them and protect the geese. Thomas and Amy land in a nearby field. While finding out who's property they landed their aircraft on, they are soon hailed by an armed elderly lady who thinks they are hunters trespassing on her land. She recognizes Amy from a news report and in her excitement offers the pilots shelter for the night. In the small bedroom where they are both lying, Amy asks her father what led to his separation with her mother. "What did she tell you?" Thomas asks. "That you were both artists and that was difficult to begin with because artists can be selfish sometimes," Amy replies. Thomas nods and as Amy expresses her pain at the fact that he barely ever came to see her, her father apologizes and opens up about how he buried himself in his work to numb the fear and anger he was feeling after loosing them both.

In the morning, Amy and Thomas are joined by Susan, Barry and David who have been following on the road providing essential weather information to the pilots. Amy calls out to the fifteen geese out on the pond. The birds respond and agree to keep on with the established route. On the way, the Aldens encounter a thick patch of fog and Thomas observes that the batteries on one of his navigational instruments have run out. Amy cries out to her father as she realizes they are in the middle of a large city and are flying among skyscrapers. "Amy, stay on the main street!" Thomas exclaims. Busy bureaucrats turn around, marveling at this unusual sight of geese and ultralight aircrafts flying past their windows.

As they are approaching the North Carolina wetland, a joint on one of Thomas’ wings breaks, sending him crashing into a corn field below. Amy lands immediately, calling out frantically to her father as she is running among the rows. Thomas has an injured arm and his craft is too damaged to continue. He encourages Amy to finish the journey on her own. "I can’t leave you here, you’re hurt," Amy replies. "I can’t find my way without you." But Thomas insists she can and manages to convince her, as they are only a few miles away from their destination. He gives her some final instructions and she takes off while he straps his arm into a sling and hitchhikes his way to the site.

Amy covers the last strip pondering on this adventure coming to an end. Meanwhile a large group of supporters along with Amy's family stand up to developers who are waiting to start the excavation of the site. As soon as Amy and the geeses arrive, David scatters the crowd to leave room for the plane to land. Amy embraces her friends and family and as they stand by the lake where the geese are frolicking joyfully, but to the dismay of the developers. Amy kneels next to her father and lays her head on his shoulder.

In the following spring, Amy's flock takes off and heads north on its own. All sixteen geese including Igor return to Amy's front porch.

Cast

 * Thomas Alden : Jeff Daniels


 * Amy Alden : Anna Paquin


 * Susan Barnes : Dana Delany


 * David Alden : Terry Kinney


 * Barry Strickland : Holter Graham


 * Glen Seifert : Jeremy Ratchford


 * Olin Hatfield : Michael J. Reynolds


 * Aliane : Deborah Verginella

Production Notes

 * Rights to Bill Lishman's story were purchased by Columbia Pictures in 1994 after 20/20 aired a segment on the Canadian inventor piloting his ultralight aircraft followed by a flock of geese in 1993.
 * Fly Away Home never had a complete, definite script to begin with. Bill Lishman's work and writings were the main inspiration, and a story was elaborated around this. Jeff Daniels initially felt this was "movie suicide," but it actually allowed actors to create their own character and improvise with dialogue, often resulting in casual humour and realistic conversations. Working with wild geese also generated many unexpected situations and the story was made to accomodate this. Producer Carol Baum recalls: "We really wanted to capture the essence of Bill Lishman's character because he is larger than life, but we had to make a movie of it. So we invented a story about a girl who lost her mother and who reunites with her father. That is made up. In real life, Bill has a wife and a nice family. But when you make a movie, you have to create situations that allow for the growth of the characters."
 * Pilot doubles stood in for Jeff Daniels and Anna Paquin who never flew the aircrafts themselves, only handled them on the ground. Close-ups of the actors flying the planes were shot in front of a green screen and were later added to images shot during the actual flying by pilot doubles. Helmets and heavy equipment allowed for an easy dissimulation of the doubles' faces.
 * Some 60 Canada geese were used for filming since the goslings grew and changed too rapidly for the same flock to be used for the whole production.