Summer With Selik

A made-for-video Norwegian production, this story of a teenage girl who spends her summer vacation with her father caring for a baby harbor seal lacks the kind of multi-layered story of, say, a Disney live-action production. There are no dramatic stand-offs between father and daughter, and no villain tries to steal the seal for his own vile purposes. Heck, there's not even a tremendous amount of psychological back and forth inside the main character. Instead, Summer With Selik offers a realistic portrayal of the massive undertaking of trying to teach a baby seal about water, catching fish, and swallowing. Working with a local vet, daughter and father tube feed the seal and clean up its messes (there's a graphic poop scene), while forcing nicely cut fish down its throat. The dramatic tension of the story is completely borne by Selik: will he learn how to catch and then swallow a regular sized fish so that he can survive in the wild? Although that might sound like a thin thread to hang an entire story on, the film succeeds because Selik is incredibly cute and watching his antics are a lot of fun. Still, there is one scene in particular where Selik falls, suffers a concussion, and has blood coming out of his nose (which really happened) that might be too intense for younger kids. But, for ages 7-12, this is quite good. Highly recommended. (R. Pitman)