Nell Fisher and Elijah Wood in the movie Bookworm.
Known for grisly, gonzo-horrors, what business does Ant Timpson have making a family-friendly film, wonders Karl Puschmann, who talks to the Kiwi film powerhouse about his new film, Bookworm, working with Elijah Wood again, and whether the Canterbury Panther is actually out there.
The incredibly strange thing about Ant Timpson’s new film Bookworm is that it’s not.
For his entire career, Timpson has embraced the bizarre - usually extremely bloody - side of cinema. As a producer, he shepherded cult films such as Deathgasm and The Greasy Strangler to the screen. As a director, he was directly responsible for the disturbing and blood-soaked comedic thriller Come to Daddy.
And, as a general film obsessive, he was the brains behind two long-running, cinematic institutions; The 48 Hours Filmmaking Challenge and The Incredibly Strange Film Festival.
So, what exactly does Timpson think he’s playing at with Bookworm, a PG-rated, family adventure film about an 11-year-old girl going on an unexpected journey with her estranged father to find the mythical Canterbury Panther?
“I don’t know if it’s an attempt at credibility,” he jokes, “Like an attempt at becoming more credible in terms of the public.”
It’s no exaggeration to say that Bookworm has the goods to do for Timpson what The Hunt for the Wilderpeople did for fellow Kiwi director Taika Waititi back in 2016. They do, after all, share some surface-level similarities. Both films revolve around a precocious kid going bush with a father figure. In Wilderpeople it’s the boy’s gruff uncle while in Bookworm it’s the girl’s literal father, a fey, failed magician she’s never met before.
Wilderpeople star Julian Dennison was just 13 when he led that film and quickly became a global sensation. Roles in major Hollywood blockbusters soon followed, including Deadpool 2 and Godzilla Vs. Kong. Conversely, Bookworm’s 12-year-old star Nell Fisher recently confirmed a role in the upcoming final season of Netflix’s blockbuster horror series Stranger Things.
While both Bookworm and Wilderpeople expertly blend drama and comedy, the films have very different themes and ideas behind them. They also differ in that Timpson isn’t afraid to sneak in the odd jump scare or tense moment to keep his audience, both kids and adults alike, on the edge of their seats. Well, it wouldn’t be an Ant Timpson film if there wasn’t something scary about it…
I took my 9-year-old daughter and 6-year-old son to an advance screening of Bookworm and the three of us were utterly absorbed the whole time. They loved the adventurous spirit of the film, while I enjoyed the fact that it was a well-crafted and engaging yarn blessedly free from irony and the winking humour that’s so often shoehorned in for the adults dragged to the cinema to see a “kids” film.
Bookworm was not like this. I was as entertained as my children. It reminded me of the sort of film I’d watch with my family back in the 80s. This, it turns out, was very much deliberate.
“Bookworm is really playing into those 70s films that I grew up with,” Timpson says. “They were really seminal for me, those wilderness family adventures. They could be a little bit preachy at times, but they weren’t patronising to kids. They were what used to be called ‘general entertainment’. They weren’t just targeted at kids. They worked for everyone. We were trying to pay homage to that type of cinema.”
Then he grins and says, “So, yeah, it’s a huge departure from the gnarliness of something like Come to Daddy or the extra crazy stuff like The Greasy Strangler.”
Timpson co-wrote the film with his creative partner, the English writer Toby Harvard. While neither specifically intended their next project together to be PG-rated, they didn’t shy away from it as their idea crystalised. The two key inspirations were Timpson’s golden-hued memories of his own childhood and their shared anxiety about being good fathers.
“It really came to focus when I thought back to being in the South Island as a youngster. That sense of stepping away from suburbia and suddenly being in the complete wilderness. The idea of escaping into adventure was so strong in my DNA,” he says. “That set the narrative for us to explore our roles as masculine role models and our fear of failing as parents. The fear of not stepping up in the face of crisis in front of your kids is the genesis of the whole film.”
These fears are played perfectly by Hollywood star, and Timpson’s frequent leading man, Elijah Wood, who plays Mildred’s estranged father Strawn Wise. A Las Vegas street magician he is very much out of his depth tackling the dangers of the wild New Zealand bush and looking after his ultra-assertive daughter.
The film was shot on location in the South Island over 27 days. Timpson tactfully describes the Kiwi bush as “a difficult filming environment,” and has nothing but praise for his two leads, the Hollywood veteran and the next big thing.
“Elijah’s obviously one of the loveliest guys in the industry. He gets on with everyone and makes it very easy for someone like Nell to side up. There was a lot of weight on her shoulders. It’s tough for an actor to be in nearly every single scene, to be that ready to go every single day. It’s tough, long hours. But she was just great and they got on like a house on fire.”
He pauses to think for a second and then says, “You know, they also have some sort of resemblance as well. They’ve both got these striking blue eyes. You could definitely make a case that they were related.”
The last thing to ask is about the unlikely pair’s prey, the Canterbury Panther. There’s been many sightings of the elusive big cat in Canterbury over the years but no hard concrete evidence of its existence. So, the last question to ask is a simple one.
Does he believe the Canterbury Panther exists?
It was a bit of a light, jokey question to end our interview on, but Timpson is dead serious when he says, “We ran into people who had firsthand accounts. It’s not just a casual beer story at the pub”.
“There’s a lot of great folklore and sightings of the beast down there. There are definitely Panther-type cats out there, that’s for sure. We talked to a guy who’d shot a massively large feral cat and that thing was a substantial beast. It was dog-size. But whether the legend’s right that a panther escaped in 1915 and its lineage is running around in the hills...?”
He leaves it unanswered and then says, “I for one believe that there are definitely some very large freaking cats down there.”
Bookworm opens in New Zealand cinemas today.
Karl Puschmann is an entertainment columnist for the Herald. His fascination lies in finding out what drives and inspires creative people.
The Hollywood star is 70 but has no plans to retire from acting.